​Last month signaled the climax of nearly 10 months of radical change for our company. In February, we launched our new product: an infrared hive grading solution called Verifli.
 
This was not your typical product launch. We didn’t send out endless email blasts begging everyone and their mother to try our shiny new thing. We didn’t make a media push to reach millions of eyes. We didn’t slap any sexy branding around it.
 
In fact, we hardly made much noise at all. We kept our heads down. If you’ve only been following us publicly, you probably have no clue what our company even does anymore. Well, we’re writing this to catch our faithful followers up to speed.

Around last May, our team had a collective “Aha!” moment. In the months leading up to that lightbulb flash, we worked tirelessly trying to figure out how to scale our company, our technology and obviously, our bottom line. We landed on almond pollination.
 
Each February, three quarters of the nation’s beehives are shipped to California, where 80% of the world’s almond are grown. Over 2 million beehives congregate in California’s Central Valley to pollination roughly 1 million acres of almond trees. At an average fee of $200 per hive, beekeepers in the US gain a healthy influx of cash early in the season while their bees enjoy a head start to the year.
 
But there are a few key issues. Although bees don’t “hibernate” as we usually think of it, they close up shop for the winter—shutting down the queen’s egg laying, booting non-essential bees from the hive, conserving nutritional storage and clustering tightly to retain heat. Since many big-time bee operations are located in areas with harsh winters, most beehives are at their weakest point in the year around the start of almond pollination.

But the best pollination comes from hives that are in mid-season form, not fresh out of spring training. To compensate for this, growers reward the beekeepers who can build hives to mid-season form by paying top dollar for strong bees.

But this highlights another key issue: the only one way to verify that you’ve got strong bees is by cracking hives open and checking. If you rent thousands of hives, this process can take days, perhaps longer if the weather doesn’t cooperate (like this season). What’s worse, a strong hive can contain anywhere from 10 to 15 THOUSAND bees. There’s simply no way the human eye can distinguish an 11,000-bee colony from a 14,000-bee colony—but there’s a significant difference in terms of pollination output. At the end of the day, an inaccurate hive strength assessment means someone’s leaving money on the table.

Now, to break up the wall of text, here are some amazing photos from our first pollination season (photo credit: Deftly Creative):

​We saw this disconnect between beekeepers who are doing everything they can to build strong hives and growers who are willing to pay whatever it costs to get them. We figured there had to be a better way to reconcile their interests and evoke transparency and understanding.
 
We decided to develop a product to help growers and beekeepers measure the strength of their bees faster and with greater accuracy and objectivity. Our product, Verifli, uses infrared image analysis to map out the heat signature given off by the bees. Using physics and data science paired with real-time weather information, we can deliver an accurate assessment of each beehive with a single infrared photo of the outside of a hive.
 
With Verifli, there’s no last-second panic when a beekeeper finds high winter losses in mid-January; he can check the bees throughout the winter and give a heads up to his grower if they need to rent extra hives. With Verifli, a grower can set up a true incentive program to reward his beekeeper for every high-strength hive, not just what they find in a 10% sample. With Verifli, a grower can know exactly which parts of the orchard have low-strength hives, so he can shuffle around pallets to maximize pollination.

Now that you see the rationale behind our decision to pivot, I want to tell you about how we came up with a plan to launch a product in under 10 months. Check back next week for part 2!

​Hey readers! It’s been quite a while since my last update. Hope you’ve all had a great start to your 2019! For the growers out there, I hope your pollination season hasn’t been bogged too much by all the rain. We’ve been quite busy here at The Bee Corp with the launch of our digital hive grading product, Verifli. Speaking of hive grading, let’s talk frame counts.

​For those of you not familiar, frame count is the metric used by growers and beekeepers to measure the population size of a hive. The concept is simple enough: if seven of the frames inside a hive are covered by bees, it’s a seven-frame hive. The tricky thing about this method is accuracy. A single deep frame supposedly holds about 1,500 bees. But what if the frame is only partially covered by bees? What if they’re only covering one side of the frame? What if it’s a medium or shallow frame? 

​Then there are other factors like weather and timing. What if it’s peak flight time and 1/3 of the bees are out foraging? What if it’s a little chilly and the bees are clustered tightly? What if I've done hundreds of frame counts today and I can't really distinguish between a 6-frame and a 7-frame hive anymore? 

As a data scientist, all these variables troubled me as Wyatt and I collected more than 500 frame counts last summer.

I hereby propose a new way to measure frame strength. Over are the days of ripping open hives, slaving over frames overflowing with bees, with the succor of smoke to yield the path! Now is the time for innovative methods to claim their rightful seat to the throne!
 
Aside from sounding like the ramblings of a madman, hear me out. Remember, quite a while ago, my post about how hot a bee is? That, as it turns out, is around 30-38 degrees Celsius. That got me thinking: we know there are roughly 1,500 bees on an average deep frame. We know the general heat output of an individual bee. Why not calculate colony size in terms of energy output?

I propose a new unit of measurement for frame strength: the Bee Power Unit (BPU). Since we know how many bees we expect in an average healthy hive, and we know the average energy output of a bee, we’re able to calculate the average energy output. However, we’re not interested in some theoretical average, we want concrete details. How many bees are in that hive?

But how does one measure energy output? Which technology do we even use? If you've been following us this past year, you may already know the answer. Everything in the universe emits Infrared radiation, which is the heat energy output that can be measured with an infrared camera. Simple enough? Well, there’s a little more to it then that... Next time, I will be exploring infrared and how we can use technology to outclass the human mind.

Check back shortly for my follow-up post on this!

​Long time no see, Bee Word readers! If you couldn’t tell from the radio silence on our end, we’ve been extraordinarily busy the past few months. To catch you up in one sentence: we’ve been wrapping up the finishing touches for Verifli, our new digital hive grading product, in preparation for launch next month.
 
I’ll start by wishing you a happy 2019! The stage is set for another year of record growth at The Bee Corp. We hope you tag along for an exciting ride! Onto the good stuff:

It’s that scary time of year once again, folks. That’s right, it’s almond pollination season. The time when one question lingers on everyone’s mind: what will go wrong this year? Usually followed by this question: am I paying/charging a fair price for pollination?

We polled a handful of almond growers. Here’s what they're paying per hive:

• Low: $150
• High: $220
• Average: $192.27

 
Just for reference, we know that Joe Traynor is charging $240 this year. Rule of thumb: if you’re paying more than this and you’re not 100% certain that you’ve got the best bees on the planet, you’re doing something wrong.
 
Two things to keep in mind here. First, don’t take this information as gospel—this is only meant to be a useful reference. There’s a good chance our data is not representative of industry-wide data. So please don’t dial up your beekeeper or your grower and ask for a better rate because of what you read here.
 
Second (and most importantly), you get what you pay for when it comes to pollination. You might feel envious of your buddy down the street who’s only paying $150 per hive until it’s the 20th of February and he’s complaining that only a quarter of his bees have been placed. If you want to avoid a stressful pollination season, give your beekeeper an incentive to deliver excellent bees.

     1. Average price per hive is almost $200.
 
That’s a big deal. As rates continue to climb above $200 and growers begin look for new places to trim expenses, we’ll start to see consequences.

Big growers will begin to rip out trees in favor of planting Independence, Shastas or an entirely different crop. Small growers will stop renting bees altogether and poach their neighbors’ bees by blasting their trees with attractants. Growers with middle-aged Nonpareil orchards will scramble to cut costs and explore alternatives to honeybee pollination.

​    2. Almond growers will rent more than 2 million hives for the first time ever.
 
This is also a big deal. The U.S. bee population—roughly 2.7 million hives—will not grow any time soon. I’m willing to bet it’ll be the same, if not lower, ten years from now. If you think you’re paying too much for pollination now, wait until almonds surpass 1.3 million bearing acres.
 
Something else is going on here that’s worth noting. As much as I hate to admit, beekeepers aren’t getting any younger. Here’s what I fear might happen in the next decade:

• As major beekeepers begin to retire, many will struggle to find a young family member willing to take on the business.
• Desperate to offload their hives before another season of taxing manual labor, these retirees-to-be will sell their operation to younger beekeepers for pennies on the dollar.
• The handful of young beekeepers who take over family businesses will rapidly grow in scale thanks to cheap acquisitions of retirees’ hives.
• With the majority of commercial beehives owned by a small handful of beekeepers, the market for pollination becomes an oligopoly and prices skyrocket.

 
With these market forces in mind, it’s clear that the market for pollination will undergo a drastic facelift in the next decade. If one thing can be said about almond growers, they're a resilient and opportunistic bunch. Although the same can be said about beekeepers, their path forward is a bit more challenging. Almond growers own land in one of the most fertile regions on the planet. Beekeepers own wooden boxes filled with high-maintenance insects that aren’t very versatile in terms of economic production.

If the almond industry collapsed tomorrow, who would be hurt the most: almond growers or beekeepers? The answer should be crystal clear.

​2019 is a big year for almond pollination. And not just because I want to bestow a false sense of grandeur to this blog post. This is the year we zoom past 1 million bearing acres and 2 million rented hives. In my opinion, the market for almond pollination is on the verge of a radical inflection point. 

P.S. If you haven't done so yet, please check out the latest version of Almond Board's handy guide: Honeybee Best Management Practices.

​Ah, fall. The leaves are changing, the weather’s getting chilly, and the bees are wrapping up their last few jobs before the winter.
 
Back in the office though, beekeepers and growers aren’t slowing down. Yep, it’s that lovely time of year when everyone starts to worry about almond pollination.

​For those of us who are sending bees to California for the first time, there are a lot of things to consider before loading the trucks. First, I strongly recommend you review Joe Traynor’s articles on almond pollination. Joe’s been brokering hives for decades, and he’s the best resource out there on the topic.
 
When it comes down to negotiating price, now is the best time to reach an agreement with your grower. Don’t wait until it’s time to cut a check to haggle on price.
 
If you agree to do an inspection, figure out who’s paying for it, who’s actually doing it (either a state inspector or a private company), and when you want it done (early season hive strength results will be different from late season).

Keep in mind that while almond pollination is a pivotal time of year for you, your grower has a different perspective. They don’t care so much about the details—they just want the job done right and done on time. These are the top items on your grower’s mind:
 

1. Did I rent enough hives?
2. Are the hives I rented strong enough?
3. Will the hives arrive on time for bloom?

 
Communication is absolutely essential. You need to tell your grower ASAP if you’re concerned about meeting one or more of those above items. That said, you don’t want to burden your grower with issues that aren’t related to the above items. If your trucker falls through or you choose a different overwinter yard, these are problems you should resolve on your own.
 
Over-communication can cause growers to think you’re too high-maintenance to work with. The name of the game is long-term value. Your goal should be to show that you’re trustworthy and capable—this is how you secure contracts year over year.
 
On that note, you should plan to check in with your grower at least once a month to let them know how the bees are looking. Are you still on track to hit your quota? Do you still expect to hit the 8-frame average? Is there any reason they should worry about on-time delivery? Lining up more bees at the last second is a major headache, so help your grower out by giving them a clear idea of what to expect.

​Almond pollination is not an easy job, otherwise it wouldn’t pay so well. The best way to avoid conflict is to set clear expectations and communicate well.
 
Finally, give your grower a few ways to get in touch. Repeatedly getting sent to voicemail is the fastest way to lose your contract next year.

Here at The Bee Corp, we try to see eye-to-eye with everyone we work with. More often than not, that's easier said than done. Especially when it comes to our bees.

Human eyes transform 2D images into a 3D images much like the way an artist would paint a scene. When you look at Leonardo da Vinci’s infamous Mona Lisa, you can tell Mona is up close relative to the background. But the painting is in 2 dimensions on a single piece of flat canvas, how can that be? As it turns out, our brain infers depth and distance by literally tricking itself into seeing depth, which is why optical illusions work so well.

However, what’s more interesting is that bees are capable of being tricked by the very same things we can get tricked by. Recently, scientists found that a bee’s vision functions much like a human’s, and they are able to infer depth based on their brains tricking them as well. However, our fuzzy little friends have one small advantage over humans: their vision works in the ultraviolet spectrum.

What does it mean to view ultraviolet light? This image gives an idea of how bees see a yellow flower.

A. Shows how humans see a yellow flower

B. Same flower through UV light

C. Captured through an array of straws to simulate insect compound vision
​
D. Shows a merge of the pictures processed on the computer and gives an idea of how a bee might see a flower. 

Putting an ultraviolet light to a flower reveals certain parts that you normally wouldn’t see. For example, certain flowers are white in visible light, but become dark under ultraviolet. This same mechanism helps attract bees to certain flowers, by having a blue/Ultra-violet halo around the center of the flower, usually where the pistil and stamen are located for pollination. These concepts allow bees to maximize honey production by prioritizing which flowers to visit.

For humans to gain a better understanding of issues facing bees, perhaps we should view their issues in a different light. Research into flowers under ultraviolet light taught us many things, like which flowers to plant in pollinator gardens to attract bees.

But what about the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum? Learning more about bees through other light wavelengths like infrared light, X-ray and radio waves could yield valuable findings about how these complex creatures interact with the world around them.