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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

bees

Bee Vectoring Technologies Gets EPA Approval for its Bee-Delivered Fungicide

Bee Vectoring Technologies (BVT), a Toronto-based startup that uses bees to deliver pesticides, got a nice regulatory boost this week when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the company’s fungicide for use on commercial crops. This also marks the first time the EPA has approved any product for delivery by bees.

Clonostachys rosea CR-7, which is sold under the name Vectorite, is an organic fungicide that is labeled for use on strawberries, blueberries, sunflowers and almonds. It is a powder that is held in trays that sit outside commercial beehives. As we wrote last year, when bees exit the hive, the powder, which BVT says is not harmful to bees, gets on their feet. As the bees land on a plant and shake a flower to release pollen, the fungicide is dropped. This surgical type of delivery can give farmers more precise pesticide application methods than they might get with broad spraying.

I spoke with Ashish Malik, President and CEO of BVT, who explained that CR-7 is derived from a micro-organism found in soil around the world. BVT has isolated a particular strain that can colonize plant tissue quickly and helps fight of botrytis in fruit, which manifests as a fuzzy grey mold.

BVT’s tray holds the CR-7 for bees to walk on as they leave the hive.

“We have a number of studies and results from trials and every single trial we’ve done we’ve shown a positive effect, 20 – 25 percent better yields in strawberries,” Malik said. The results were even higher with blueberries, according to BVT press materials sent to The Spoon that said there was a 77 percent bump in fruit yield with CR-7 as well as a 50 percent gain in the number of marketable berries.

In addition to better yields, Malik said that there is early evidence that BVTs fungicide can help keep strawberries fresher longer, though he was insistent that more trials needed to be conducted before they made that claim official. If those early freshness results are borne out with further testing, it’s not hard to imagine CR-7 being used in conjunction with other startups like AgShift and Apeel in fighting food waste. CR-7 could prolong food freshness while AgShift helps route food to locations based on freshness, and Apeel would extend that freshness even longer. All of this is in theory, anyway.

Up until now, BVT has been in testing with university researchers as well as some farm demonstrations. With the EPA approval, BVT now has license to operate CR-7 as a biological fungicide commercially. “This gives us credibility in the eyes of US grower, but also outside the US,” said Malik.

Though BVT is small, it is already listed on the Toronto stock exchange. As the company looks to scale up production, Malik said it would raise the money to do so by issuing more common stock. With the EPA approval, the buzz on BVT might just be starting.

Nectar Raises $1.1M CAD Seed Round for its IoT Beehive Monitoring Tech

Nectar, the startup that creates IoT sensors and software for more precise commercial beehive management, has raised a $1.1 million CAD (~$824,000) seed round of funding. According to Betakit, which first reported the story, “The round was led by Interdomus Capital, and saw participation from Real Ventures, Upper Canada Equity Fund, First Stone Venture Partners, Third Estate Investments, and other angel impact investors sourced through MaRS’s impact investing platform, SVX.”

Bees are vital to our food supply. As we wrote last year when we first covered Nectar:

According to the USDA, “One out of every three bites of food in the United States depends on honey bees and other pollinators. Honey bees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops each year, including more than 130 fruits and vegetables.” But since 2006, roughly 30 percent of beehives have collapsed due to disease, pesticides and loss of habitat.

Nectar works by inserting a “Beecon” sensor into a hive, which monitors temperature, humidity, audio and movement activity. That data is beamed from the Beecon to the BeeHub station, which transmits the data to the cloud where it is analyzed by Nectar’s software. Beekeepers can then better monitor their hives to see if a new queen is hatching, if the temperature is correct, hive mortality rates and more.

Nectar isn’t the only startup catching the buzz on bee management. ApisProtect in Ireland uses IoT sensors for commercial hives as well, and BroodMinder is an open source solution for bee hobbyists.

Prior to this seed round, Nectar was a part of the Founder Fuel accelerator in Canada, which provided $100,000 (CAD). Nectar told Betakit it will use the new funding to grow its presence in North America and work with more commercial beekeepers and farmers.

BroodMinder Open Sources its Beehive Sensor Data

There are plenty of companies out there making sensors that allow beekeepers to monitor their hives. What sets BroodMinder apart is that it makes all of the data generated by its users free and open to the public by default.

BroodMinder is a small, bootstrapped company that sells basic hive sensors to the beekeeping enthusiast market (read: not big commercial operations). A basic temperature sensor will cost beekeepers just $30 to get started, and uses Bluetooth to transmit data to the BroodMinder mobile app on your phone once an hour. Users can then track their hive data on the MyBroodMinder app.

If you want to gather more data from your hives, BroodMinder also sells a humidity sensor, a scale to measure hive weight ($179) and a hive HUB that will continuously collect data from your sensors and beam them up to the cloud through a cellular connection ($398 for unit + cell subscription) or WiFi ($348 for unit + premium BroodMinder subscription).

If you want to keep your data private, you’ll have to pay $75/year for a BroodMinder premium subscription. “We want a big pile of data,” said Rich Morris, “Lead Drone” at BroodMinder. “We collect that data and store it for free in the cloud, as long as you agree that it is public domain.”

All shared data is anonymous and coded only by zip code. You can see the hive data for yourself via an interactive map over at beecounted.org. Right now, BroodMinder has 1,100 users across 1,700 apiaries and 2,700 hives, and the Broodminder database just crossed 100 million data points.

So what’s going to be done with all this data? That’s a good question. Right now, BroodMinder is just collecting data, it doesn’t offer machine learning or AI to turn that data in actionable insights for beekeepers. There are, however, some groups like university researchers poring over the data to see what can learned in aggregate, especially as it relates to any insights about latitude, climate change and bee health.

That’s not to say BroodMinder won’t find ways to monetize this data. At this point, the company is just too small to develop that robust of a product roadmap. Unlike other beehive monitoring services like ApisProtect and Nectar, which target the commercial space and have taken outside money, BroodMinder is funded by Morris and staffed mostly by volunteers.

Eventually, Morris wants to take BroodMinder into the agriculture space and sell to commercial operations, but his first priority is to grow a user base, collect information and then be able to show more concrete ROI.

Hopefully his open data approach can build more buzz for BroodMinder.

ApisProtect Raises $1.8M to Save the Bees Through IoT

ApisProtect, which uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology to monitor and help keep honeybee colonies healthy, announced today that it has raised a $1.8 million seed round led by Finistere Ventures and Atlantic Bridge Capital.

Based in Cork, Ireland, ApisProtect places sensors in commercial beehives to measure factors like humidity, temperature, sound and more. This data is transmitted back to ApisProtect where it applies machine learning algorithms to create actionable insights for beekeepers, such as if a queen is still alive, if there is a pest, or if a colony is about to swarm.

The ApisProtect sensor itself is about the size of a VHS cassette and uses a combination of radio networks including cellular and satellite communications to ensure that any beehive can be monitored, no matter how remote. “It can work in any beehive anywhere on earth,” Fiona Edwards Murphy Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of ApisProtect, told me in a phone interview.

As we’ve noted before, bee populations are declining. That is a bad thing since, according to the USDA, “One out of every three bites of food in the United States depends on honey bees and other pollinators. Honey bees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops each year, including more than 130 fruits and vegetables.”

ApisProtect has been in trials since the end of this summer and currently monitors more than six million honey bees in 144 hives across Europe and North America. The company is still working on its business model, but it will most likely be a subscription-based model with little up-front costs.

ApisProtect isn’t the only startup building a bee business. Up in Canada, Nectar has also developed a sensor system to monitor bee activity. Elsewhere in the apiary world, Bee Vector Technology is using bees as precision pesticide applicators.

This is the first fundraise for ApisProtect, which will use the money to open an office in Salinas, CA and scale up as quickly as possible to bring the product to market in 2019. With bees playing such a crucial role in our ecosystem, hopefully the work of ApisProtect and others will generate enough buzz to make a difference.

Bee Vectoring Technology Uses Bees to Apply Pesticide on Crops

Bees are pretty remarkable creatures (once you get past all that stinging). They pollinate crops, make delicious honey, and if a Toronto-based agtech company has its way, bees will be used to apply pesticides to crops to help ward off disease and increase yields.

The appropriately named Bee Vectoring Technology (BVT) works with commercial beehive operators hired by farms to pollinate crops. BVT installs a dispenser in the hives that holds a patented, all natural and organic fungicide in powder form. As the bees exit the hive, they walk through the powder and carry it to the crops. When the bees land and shake to release pollen from the plant, the fungicide is dropped into the flower where it acts a preventative measure against certain pests.

“It is a biological agent delivering a biological agent,” said Ashish Malik, President and CEO of BVT in a phone interview.

The method isn’t a cure-all, and won’t prevent every type of crop disease.”This is a solution that is best suited for diseases that affect crops through the flower,” said Malik. Right now BVT works with bumblebees to deliver a biopesticide that prevents botrytis, a fungal infection, from growing in strawberries. According to Malik, it takes approximately a hive and half of bumblebees (roughly 200 insects at the hive’s peak) to work an acre of strawberries.

The benefit of the bee delivery system, Malik says, is that farmers can increase their crop yield while minimizing waste. By using bees to apply the biopesticide, farmers don’t have to take a shotgun approach, spraying chemicals across their entire field. Additionally, BVT’s fungicide is naturally derived and needs no water for its application. And according to Malik, the good news for the bees is that the biopesticide BVT developed does not harm the insects or impact their honey.

BVT is currently piloting a program at a strawberry farm in Florida, and has run tests in other parts of the world. It is in the R&D phase to expand their work into protection for other types of berries, and treatment from other types of pests. The company is going through the regulatory process to get approval for its patented biopesticide, which Malik says should happen in six months.

Founded in 2012 BVT is currently “pre-revenue,” which is something you hear quite a bit when covering startups. But what you don’t hear as often is that the company already went public in 2015. BVT is listed on the Toronto stock exchange. It’s not like the company has a huge burn rate, as it has less than 10 people working at the company. When it does start generating revenue, BVT will use a service model where they will charge a fixed amount per acre of land for the whole season, and Malik said it will be priced competitively to the chemical programs currently being used.

BVT’s animalistic, earth-friendly approach to pesticide application reminds me of BioFiltro, which uses thousands of worms to filter wastewater on farms. And it seems like there’s some kind of partnership opportunity with Nectar, which helps beekeepers better manage their hives (you know, because bee populations are dying off).

Perhaps BVT can generate enough buzz to build its business, and maybe its business can save some bees.

Two New Programs Bring Bees to Your Backyard

Somehow, I have found myself on the apiary beat here at The Spoon. This despite my turning into a flailing, cowering wildman at the sight (or buzz) of one. Regardless of my grade school-level fear of getting stung, I recognize how important bees are to our food system, which is why it’s exciting to see two new ways people can bring beehives to their own backyards.

You’ve probably heard the buzz on bees by now: Seventy out of every 100 human food crops are pollinated by bees. In the U.S., bees pollinate 130 agricultural plants, and bee pollination is worth more than $9 billion to U.S. agriculture. And, oh yeah, bees are dying off. Where the U.S. once had six million bee colonies in the 1960s, we now have less than 3 million.

So bees need to make a comeback. To help, MOM’s Organic Market in Maryland is selling a starter beehive. Food Dive reports that the local grocery chain has partnered with Richland Honey Bees to sell a queen bee and nucleus hive (a hive in a box). The starter kits are available online, cost $185 and Maryland residents can pick theirs up at one of four local MOM’s shops there.

If you’re looking for an even more low-tech solution to starting up a beehive, head over to Amazon and pick up Turn This Book Into a Beehive. It’s written by Lynn Brunelle, who used to be a writer for Bill Nye the Science Guy, and is filled with facts and activities about bees. But the big selling point, as the title spells out, is that you can turn it into a beehive by tearing out perforated pages, rolling them up and enclosing them in the book’s jacket and hanging it outside.

While this paper-based solution may not be as high-tech as the Nectar hive sensors, it seems like a good way to assist the pollination process in your own backyard, especially as we head into vegetable gardening season.

Of course, if you are interested in getting more into beekeeping, you should check with your local laws to ensure that your city allows it.

Turning a book into a beehive has turned into my next weekend family project. Thankfully I’ll have my grade school son there to help me get over my elementary fears.

Nectar Puts Sensors in Hives to Help Save the Bees

Mark Wahlberg knows it. Debbie Harry knows it. And you probably know it too. Bee populations are declining, and that is bad news.

According to the USDA, “One out of every three bites of food in the United States depends on honey bees and other pollinators. Honey bees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops each year, including more than 130 fruits and vegetables.” But since 2006, roughly 30 percent of beehives have collapsed due to disease, pesticides and loss of habitat.

The good news, however, is that a Canadian startup called Nectar is using technology to help beekeepers better manage their colonies to help fight off this decline. The company creates sensors (also called Nectar) that go directly into beehives to monitor data such as temperature, humidity, and weight of the hive as well as the frequencies the bees emit.

Up to three sensors can be placed in a hive, depending on the type of data and how much of it you want to collect. For instance, one can be placed in the brood to monitor bee activity, or you can add more to get an overall sense of the hive and its honey production. Each sensor uses Bluetooth, which, according to the company’s lead apicultural scientist, won’t harm the bees. Readings are broadcast from the sensors to a nearby gateway every hour, and then the data is transmitted to the Cloud.

Nectar then parses through all that information and transmits it to a dashboard that keeps the beekeeper updated on the state of their bees. They can quickly learn if a new queen is hatching, whether the temperature in the hive is ideal, if there are parasites in the hive, or when the bees are about to swarm (when roughly half of the colony splits off to create a new hive).

Nectar wants to modernize beekeeping, which hasn’t changed its traditional methods for the past 100 years. Those traditional methods are manual and disruptive, with beekeepers physically opening up hives each week to check in on them, which agitates the bees and reduces their honey production. Once inside the hive, beekeepers usually rely on inaccurate, “gut” reactions to the look, sound and smell to determine its overall health.

According to Nectar co-Founder Marc-André Roberge, the result of adding his company’s sensors is farmers “Cutting down on operating cost. Losing fewer hives and raising revenue in terms of honey production and pollination contracts.”

Nectar was part of the Founder Fuel accelerator’s 2017 cohort, which gave the company $100,000 (Canadian). Nectar sensors are in pilot programs right now with commercial beekeepers, and the company aims to officially launch the first version of their product in Q1 of 2019 (when the new bee season starts). It will cost $2.50 ($1.98 USD) per month for one sensor, $4.00 ($3.17 USD) for two sensors, and $5.50 ($4.37 USD) for three sensors.

Nectar’s homepage says it can “Give your bees a voice.” Hopefully, people will listen.