[HN Gopher] Solar-powered robotic beekeeping
___________________________________________________________________
Solar-powered robotic beekeeping
Author : Jedd
Score : 117 points
Date : 2022-03-31 09:28 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.beewise.ag)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.beewise.ag)
| progre wrote:
| Sidetrack: I think the focus on domesticated bees as pollinators
| is dangerous. If wild polinators can't survive we are fucked even
| if we have bees.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| There are solitary bees (leafcutter bees, carpenter bees, etc.)
| that can still pollinate and who do not suffer from colony
| collapse.
| frankzander wrote:
| But from diversity loss (that biodiversity one ;) and
| pesticides
| mstipetic wrote:
| We are fucked anyways. In my area we just had no rain for more
| than a month (where usually there should be 12 rainy days) with
| basically drought coming - nobody even noticed, they were busy
| with more important things I guess
| adamdusty wrote:
| Local weather stories hardly mean we're fucked. It snowed and
| hailed in Tucson yesterday. Does that mean we're all saved?
| notum wrote:
| Why yes, yes it does. Thank you sweet baby Jesus! I'm off
| to grab a candy bar from my bug-out bag.
| msrenee wrote:
| They are definitely an indication of where we're headed if
| it's been a trend. Is this the first dry March in a while
| or the dryest March in a series of gradual dryer ones over
| the poster's lifetime?
| mstipetic wrote:
| It's not about the weather, it's about how detached we are
| from the world
| adamdusty wrote:
| Ah, okay. I misinterpreted what you were saying.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| I came to say something similar. If we stopped spraying
| everything with herbicide, pesticide, and fungicide we wouldn't
| have a pollinator problem. We need to stop trying to subdue
| mother nature to our will and work with her.
| 0des wrote:
| We need less people. As with livestock, the more of a crop or
| animal you pack into close proximity the higher the chance
| one disturbance or sickness wipes out everything which is
| what makes those chemicals a necessity. Unfortunately you
| can't feed this many peoples demand without superfarming.
|
| Make less people, decrease demand, and if we aren't able to
| make less people we should make these people less wasteful
| and consumptive
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| > Unfortunately you can't feed this many peoples demand
| without superfarming.
|
| There is a growing contingent of farmers proving this
| statement to be false by producing more on the same land
| with minimal use of fertilizer or biocides.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Is there a field of low tech, low impact robo-electro-wildlife
| caretaking ? if that make sense.
|
| Instead of having large flattened areas that can be used with
| tractors, having more eco friendly natural spaces, with tiny
| roombas/rovers that can attends, surveil, monitor the state of
| things 24/7.
| amelius wrote:
| I think people do it for fun. Why automate the fun work?
| agumonkey wrote:
| On a smaller scale why not. I attend the forest nearby at
| times, neighbors do it even more often .. but we can't ensure
| good care of a whole field set.
|
| Even if there were large social efforts for people to gather
| and maintain nature, we'd still be at the mercy of pest /
| insects / microscopic life acting at night.
| amelius wrote:
| Tech in this field is going very fast. See e.g. [1]. Deep
| learning can be adapted easily to various tasks.
|
| [1] https://robomechjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.11
| 86/s4...
| agumonkey wrote:
| thanks a lot
|
| ps: I was also thinking about monitoring fungi, microbes
| etc. (and the usual temp, humidity, acidity)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| How about enabling the bees to collectively walk their robotic
| bee hive around on its legs, kind of like how this goldfish
| controlled robot works -- "Just Keep Swimming":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GDgmP1ac_A
|
| Or less bee-enabling and more bee-exploitive:
|
| BeeCopter is TacoCopter for Honey: delivering hive-fresh honey to
| your picnic or garden breakfast table by flying in live bee hives
| via drones!
|
| https://tacocopter.com/
|
| >On the East Coast? Try LobsterCopter -- "Taco Of The East!"
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tacocopter-startup-delivers-t...
|
| >Tacocopter Aims To Deliver Tacos Using Unmanned Drone
| Helicopters
|
| >(As for the worry that these tacocopters could eliminate
| delivery jobs: "I don't think that's what tacocopters really
| stand for," [Star] Simpson said. "But it's certainly the sort of
| robophobia we've lived with for a long time.")
| boredumb wrote:
| The price tag is quite steep, but I really do love the idea and
| hope that more technology and thought is put into beekeeping. For
| anyone on the fence about raising bees, just do it - it was one
| of my favorite projects I've had the opportunity to participate
| in and is one of the most fascinating things to witness up close.
| clutchdude wrote:
| Beekeeper here -
|
| Video didn't show many of the aspects a beekeeper has to deal
| with.
|
| "Beehomes use A.I. to identify when a colony could be preparing
| to swarm, and automatically prevents this event by adjusting
| conditions. Beekeepers can rest assured that the Beehome has
| their colonies stay put while they focus on other
| responsibilities."
|
| doesn't sell it.
|
| Bees are livestock, not programs. They sometimes decide that it's
| time to move on no matter what you do.
|
| It doesn't show how inspections are done nor how many frames or
| frametypes are used. It doesn't show how frame rotation is
| done(necessary every few years) or what happens when you have a
| dead out.
|
| How would you introduce a new queen or perform splits?
|
| I'm also not sold on their "prevention"
|
| > How does Beehome deal with pests? > > The ones that are visible
| with the naked eye, like Varroa, are detected by the robot in
| real-time, and treatment is applied accordingly. Others are
| identified by the damage they leave, and then treatment is
| applied accordingly. > Does Beehome use/apply pesticides?
|
| > No; the robot treats for pests using a heating mechanism. The
| robot heats frames to a point where it harms the pests (Varroa)
| but does not harm the bees' brood.
|
| I glanced over a paper on hyperthermic and I'd have concerns
| regarding nurse bee viability after being subjected to that
| temps, even if brood are not seeing mortality.
|
| Meanwhile, we have extremely effective treatments for varroa that
| show little impact on brood/bees - See Randy Oliver.
|
| I could go on and on but
|
| tldr; This product handwaves away almost all of the work a
| beekeeper does without actually showing how it performs those
| tasks. I'd have extremely low confidence in it until a production
| length video of each aspect of a beekeepers job is produced and
| walked through with the Beewise.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > I'd have extremely low confidence in it until a production
| length video of each aspect of a beekeepers job is produced and
| walked through with the Beewise.
|
| I know a bit about bee-keeping (did it with my father for ~15
| years). I'd agree with you, but perhaps they don't feel ready
| to openly share too much, for fear of competition. Not a great
| idea, but this might be the reason why you don't see much in
| their material.
| clutchdude wrote:
| From what I'm reading, most of their IP is in the tech side.
| AI and other stuff.
|
| Showing me how to clean, manage and use their product
| shouldn't be the secret sauce because they're otherwise
| relying on a quick market saturation before someone catches
| up.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Hi fellow beek.
|
| > Bees are livestock, not programs.
|
| And, having two top-bar hives is not the same as having six
| apiaries each with hundreds of hives.
| clutchdude wrote:
| Yep - the hobbyist to sideliner to big time is a wide swath
| of learning and approaches.
|
| One big thing I see as an issue - how does this handle
| palletization for moving hives across the country?
| uticus wrote:
| first i've heard about hyperthermic, although i have
| anecdotally heard about benefits of increased humidity. any
| good links for readup on hyperthermic?
| clutchdude wrote:
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-019-00715-7
| - I haven't read it all the way yet.
|
| The reason why it doesn't see more uses is the difficulty to
| scale it(a beekeeper can't keep a device tied up for 2 hours
| when they've got 5,10,50,400 hives to manage.
| [deleted]
| franciscop wrote:
| I have no idea about beekeeping economies, could someone shed a
| bit of light here please? At $2000 shipping + $400/month it seems
| expensive, but it claims 24 colonies which seems like a lot, so
| how much does a colony produce per year? How much should it
| produce to make it worth this investment?
| vitro wrote:
| I guess you cannot calculate only a produce of those bees.
| Trees and flowers pollinated are a significant "side effect"
| that we neef for our survival.
| franciscop wrote:
| I assumed this would be a commercial application in the vast
| majority of cases, where I'm from we don't have a bee problem
| so it didn't occur to me that this could be setup from a
| charity just for the wellbeing of the bees.
| conjectures wrote:
| Moloch cares not for trees and flowers.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| 1. Hives rent for $40-$200 per month.
|
| 2. A well maintained hive can easily double in size over a
| single season ($150).
|
| 3. A hive can easily produce 25 lbs of honey in a single season
| ($125 wholesale, or $250+ direct).
|
| If it can really manage 24 colonies extremely well, $16 per
| colony per month is NOTHING.
| ct0 wrote:
| Im surprised this isnt getting the same level of push back as the
| flowhive did in bee keeping communities. The flowhive simply
| makes extracting honey easier, you can literally leave the
| flowhive on the brood box and pour out honey. Its very nice for
| someone who doesnt want to pull frames and use an extractor,
| which is tough work. People would say its not real bee keeping
| and worried about spreading problems to other colonies.
|
| This "does" everything but I am confident it can't replace a real
| bee keeper somewhere in the chain. Ive had issues with hives that
| are unrelated to pests that have slowed down the production of
| brood, for example a new queen mated but never started laying
| eggs. Would this device notify the land owner of that? Most
| likely not.
| 0des wrote:
| The main criticism I remember of the flowhive was that it
| increases chances of infection and can destroy the cells of the
| frames. I have no experience with this hive, that's just the
| common criticisms I remember from the time.
| headsoup wrote:
| I think the concern with this is that it seems to treat the hive
| as a machine and not a variable natural system.
|
| What does it do to bee evolution to take away their instincts and
| ability to self-regulate their hive ? What impact does that have
| on how the bees measure the inside and outside environment?
|
| It would be interesting to know what the non-chemical mite
| treatments are. Most are mechanical, so I can only imagine it
| applies powdered sugar or removes drone brood or something?
|
| I also hope it leaves a substantial mass of honey in the hive so
| the bees have sufficient sustenance over winter and into spring
| so sugar water is not needed.
|
| There's already too much interference without understanding in
| the bee industry, automating things is only going to eventually
| reduce knowledge much further, but I can appreciate the goals and
| effort at least.
| darkwater wrote:
| > What does it do to bee evolution to take away their instincts
| and ability to self-regulate their hive ? What impact does that
| have on how the bees measure the inside and outside
| environment?
|
| Wouldn't this take at least a few centuries of continued use to
| actually change something via evolution? Unless all your bees
| are dead in 2 years, obviously.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Bees only life 2-4x longer than fruit flies, and fruit flies
| "evolve" resistance to stressors in 8-9 generations (a
| month).
|
| So I'm not sure why bees couldn't have some minor changes
| within a year. But I'm also skeptical that's inherently a bad
| thing.
| i_cannot_hack wrote:
| A generation of bees is defined by the procreation of
| colonies / queens, not the life of individual worker bees,
| since they are eusocial. The queen bee lives for 3-4 years,
| and establishment of new colonies (swarming) can happen
| around once a year. I would guess 9 generations of bees
| would probably be 9 years at a minimum.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| You are absolutely correct, unless the queen is actively
| managed by the beekeeper. Commercial beekeepers will have
| a queen for half that time, and then replace her.
| headsoup wrote:
| A common symptom of today's society, thinking so short
| term.
|
| Should we consider these systems are only in place for
| 10-20 years, are assume their use will grow so we
| certainly want to make sure we're not evolving less
| robust bees.
| mhmmmmmm wrote:
| I mean a generation of bees takes atleast a year since only
| the queen is really reproducing, the worker bees themselves
| aren't exposed to any evolutionary pressure since they
| can't reproduce. (I guess they are by proxy, once their
| queen dies so does their lineage)
| mtsr wrote:
| Although individual bees don't live very long, all bees in
| a hive are from eggs laid by a single queen. So genetically
| a generation would be a hive. IIRC hives swarm (i.e.
| procreate) roughly once a year.
| kortex wrote:
| Not a beek, but I'm close friends with some, and might actually
| take the plunge this year.
|
| This looks like a classic case of "automating the wrong way" and
| thinking in terms of agents instead of tools (force multipliers).
|
| What beekeepers really benefit from are tools that let them do
| more work with less effort. Hive lifters are a perfect example
| [1]. The most popular design has a couple of mechanical flaws
| that can lead to buckling, and the hand winch is kind of a pain
| to use with really heavy supers. That's the real kind of
| innovation the field would benefit from.
|
| Another is logistics. Schlepping around hive boxes, sugar water,
| tools, supplies, through loose farm mud, is a real hassle.
| Tractors are expensive and not really maneuverable. A "farm tug"
| would be crazy useful - something like an electric wheelbarrow
| (which exists) but a more generic/modular form factor.
|
| 1 - https://beehivelifters.com/product/beehive-lifter-
| manual-2-w...
| berkes wrote:
| I am a beek, just hobby, and totally agree here.
|
| It's one of the reasons I went full "topbarhive": no more
| lifting, dragging wooden boxes around and such. Less checking-
| up too, so overall much less work.
|
| I'd like to add that bees, at least mine, have a thing against
| combustion engines. I think it's the vibration/shockwaves
| combined with the smoke.
|
| So lawnmowers, bushwhackers, farm-tugs, chainsaws and such all
| need to be battery powered. Which is possible in 2022, but
| expensive. I've had to learn how to use an old-school scythe to
| keep my stand a bit nettle/grass free over the summer. Motor-
| mowing in my bee-suite, while being attacked by angree bees is
| _not_ fun.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| I'm an electro-mechanical engineer unfamiliar with small farms.
| How would you change this type of design to be more modular or
| adaptable?
|
| https://www.overlandcarts.com/
| casselc wrote:
| Not who you asked, but as someone interested in small/hobby
| farm equipment to enable a couple people to do more work,
| more efficiently: The actual products seem nice and they have
| a variety of things that would be useful to us. I'd like to
| be able to buy a common flatbed lifting/dumping platform at
| about half those prices and be able to separately purchase
| and easily swap out the various wheelbarrow and
| garden/utility wagon bases. Ability to upgrade/replace motor
| and batteries. Ability to use the platform for additional
| powered implements like spreaders, seed drills, flail mower,
| auger, etc I'd like to be able to operate it in either a
| push-in-front (wheelbarrow) or pull-behind (wagon) fashion
| and for the drive and steering controls to work well in both
| cases. Stretch goals: a low speed follow-me mode with basic
| obstacle detection/avoidance. A go-to-programmed-location-
| and-come-back-wherever-here-is mode, optionally dumping or
| waiting for interaction at the other end.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The powered cart design? I'm not sure. I suppose there are
| some niche jobs that you could target with that. I think most
| farms set up to use a tractor with a front end loader or
| bobcat (which takes care of shoveling too), or
| gator/truck/atv for just hauling. I can see the powered cart
| being useful in small barns or niche chores, but only
| marginally (or for disabilities).
|
| In general, I think low cost, low maintenance, and the
| ability to repair it yourself (lots of COTS parts) are the
| main benefits.
|
| Interchangeable buckets/attachments would be good. What I
| mean is that I see a lot of outdoor or primary sector uses in
| the existing carts. Could be good to have the bucket of the
| wheelbarrow be interchangeable for the secondary or value-add
| steps. Many small farms need to vertically integrate to
| survive. So maybe have it focused on processing, like
| hauling, warming, and bottling (honey gate) that 100 gallon
| container this honey device uses. Or maybe for hauling
| mushroom bags from sterilization, to inoculation, to fruiting
| rooms.
|
| Also, I assume many of the people using a powered wheelbarrow
| type device would find a loading aide/mechanism highly
| beneficial. Stuff like shoveling takes a long time and can be
| hard on the back.
| criddell wrote:
| Why honeybees? It seems like of all the bees out there, honeybees
| get all the attention. In North America, wouldn't it be better to
| encourage bee keeping of the species that are native to the
| region?
| jmhobbs wrote:
| Honey bees are the easiest to manage really. Some other bees
| are raised for pollination, but honey bees have a long history
| of management and semi-domestication. We already know how to
| raise and manage big colonies for migratory pollination.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It sounds really cool/powerful. Also sounds like it kills the joy
| of beekeeping.
| sgt wrote:
| Really cool - but this is not simple, is it? I mean, it is a
| really complex system if you think about it, down to the software
| even and cloud services.
| Kerrick wrote:
| When I was getting into commercial honey production on a small
| scale for my farm over the last year or so, I looked into Beewise
| quite closely. Unfortunately, they don't do small scale. From
| their FAQ:
|
| > We currently cater exclusively to Commercial Beekeepers
| managing 1,000 beehives and above.
| londons_explore wrote:
| What impact does humans having beehives have on wild/natural
| colonies?
|
| When there are only so many flowers to go around, keeping bees
| might just be a disguised way to destroy natural bees.
| uticus wrote:
| intrigued by question. i honestly do not know, but can add for
| context that it is not unheard of in my area (temperate
| woodland) to have a dozen or more hives cohabiting the same
| acre. of course the bees are not confined to the acre, but my
| point is, if competition were a concern, perhaps a counterpoint
| is how would so many hives in one acre be sustainable?
|
| additionally, many of the colonies are from local swarms.
| granted, who knows what genetic backgrounds are, but they are
| "wild" in contemporary terms.
|
| additionally, commercial operations make good money because
| there _are too many_ flowering things to go around.
|
| would be interested in hearing counterpoints to my
| counterpoints, genuinely intrigued by question & implications
| berkes wrote:
| This is only partly true. And context matters a lot too.
|
| For one, pollination causes better seed production. So better
| pollination, means more flowering plants, so more food for
| insects next season.
|
| It's studied (I cannot find the paper, it was a German study,
| that's all I remember) where a very "poor" area (farmland and
| production-forests reclaimed as diverse nature) did had much
| more insects, much faster, on the side where honeybees were
| kept, than on the side where they weren't, due to the honeybees
| "creating" flowering plants for other insects to eat from too.
|
| But I've also read a study from the Netherlands which is now
| often used by nature-management to ban honeybee-colonies from
| nature areas due to them competing against more endangered
| insects in those areas.
|
| It's nature. It depends.
| jsiepkes wrote:
| Looks super interesting. I would love to see some reallife
| feedback. Such are the moving parts prone to jams and stuff like
| that.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > Such are the moving parts prone to jams and stuff like that.
|
| They are probably prone to honey rather than jams. /jk
|
| Actually the question I most want answered is about materials
| and environments -- I know hives can start in all sorts of
| things, but I am wondering about bee health (physical/social)
| in the context of metal and plastic.
|
| Also their material preferences; do bees still need to be
| persuaded/cajoled to settle in an inorganic space when there
| might be wooden or brick structures in the vicinity?
|
| Are commercial hives already well past this point and using
| metal and plastics?
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > They are probably prone to honey rather than jams. /jk
|
| Ah, this one was really juicy!
| Jedd wrote:
| Here in AU, most commercial hive operators are using very
| basic wooden hives - many aren't even using (metal) mesh
| bases, which are a common home-scale defence against things
| like Small Hive Beetle (SHB) because _at scale_ it 's a
| significant cost, both cap-ex and op-ex.
|
| In 2015, the Flow Hive guys broke all kinds of kickstarter
| records with their plastic frame / externally-harvestable
| hive, though we've had plastic frames around for a lot longer
| than that. The bees don't seem to mind, but the only metric
| we have are 'do they stick around?'. Given they're free to
| leave at any time if they don't like their home, that's a
| pretty reasonable measure.
|
| Before varroa were identified as one of the key causal
| factors of colony collapse, there were questions around
| whether the natural wax foundation, with its regular, and
| perhaps slightly under-sized cells, were part of the problem.
| Same question with plastic foundation / frames. Empirical
| evidence suggests that the kinds of high-quality plastic
| that's used in beehives isn't, so far as we can tell, part of
| the problem.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Thanks -- this is precisely the kind of info-filled reply I
| was hoping for :-)
| progre wrote:
| Polystyrene hives are quite common. I'm sure plasic frames
| exist but I haven't seen them in use.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I don't think I ever want to eat honey again.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| (Polystyrene sets my teeth on edge, is why -- I should
| have explained that better. Buzzing bees in
| polystyrene... nails on blackboard)
| jmhobbs wrote:
| I'd be surprised to find any commercial keepers using
| polystyrene. Migratory bee keeping is rough on equipment,
| and at scale I think woodenware still makes the most sense.
| I'm not in that community, but everything I see in Bee
| Culture and online looks like polystyrene is firmly in the
| hobbyist realm.
| Gys wrote:
| > We currently cater exclusively to the North American market.
| We plan on expanding our reach within the next few months.
|
| > We currently cater exclusively to Commercial Beekeepers
| managing 1,000 beehives and above.
|
| Genuine question: are you within their target market? I guess
| only a commercial honey maker would be?
| jsiepkes wrote:
| > Genuine question: are you within their target market? I
| guess only a commercial honey maker would be?
|
| No just interested in the technical side of the product.
| Though I would love to buy one with some friends and run it
| if they would ever start selling to consumers.
| Gasp0de wrote:
| Would you be willing to put out 40$/mo with your 10 friends
| though? The product seems super expensive in my (totally
| unprofessional) opinion.
| jsiepkes wrote:
| I would definitly be willing to invest in it. The idea
| would be to make it (atleast) a break-even operation
| eventually.
| Gys wrote:
| A bit more small scale:
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hiive/hiive-better-for-...
| arijun wrote:
| This doesn't look like it does anything robotically, but is
| rather is supposed to be a "better manmade hive" (e.g. with
| insulation and a semi-permeable membrane). I am not equipped to
| evaluate that claim, or if their manufacture/delivery goals are
| possible, so I would probably wait until someone else weighed
| in.
| Gys wrote:
| Indeed no robotics, but it has sensors to monitor the inside
| environment and detect swarming (a beekeeping friend of mine
| said it important to see that, because you would want to
| 'catch' the swarm). The honey collection is manual, but seems
| much easier then in current beehives.
|
| Just to give an alternative modern take on beekeeping. The OP
| solution is only for people having 1000+ hives ;-)
|
| And neither I have any knowledge nor intention to keep bees.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Looks like skeps that were made taller?
| camtarn wrote:
| This is really nice, and (to this non-beekeeper) looks like it
| was actually made by people familiar with beekeeping, unlike
| the original post.
| drewm1980 wrote:
| How does this control varoa?
|
| One of the arguments against domesticated honey bees is that they
| not only take food from but also spread disease to wild honey bee
| populations. The more diseased the domestic ated bees get the
| more hives keepers build to compensate, compounding the problem.
| seanc wrote:
| In the FAQ they say they heat the frame to a temperature which
| "harms the varroa but does not harm the brood". IANABK, but
| color me skeptical.
| jmhobbs wrote:
| That sounded dodgy to me but it does look like it's got some
| legitimacy: https://scientificbeekeeping.com/a-test-of-
| thermal-treatment...
|
| I mostly use oxalic acid, but if heat treating becomes viable
| I'd welcome it on the hobbyist scale.
| catmanjan wrote:
| According to the link "They constantly monitor pests within the
| hive and apply non-chemical treatment where needed"
| drewm1980 wrote:
| Yup. That vagueness is why I asked.
| Gasp0de wrote:
| So according to Google one Beehive can produce 20-30kg of honey
| per year. For the 24 beehives in this machine that would be 720kg
| of honey max, selling for around 10EUR per kg in Germany. That
| would make a maximum of 7200EUR in one year, while the machine
| costs 4800$/year plus 2000 for delivery in the first year.
| Additionally, the Beekeeper has to retrieve, package and sell the
| honey. I don't see this machine reaching profitability, even if
| it would mean no work whatsoever for the beekeeper.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Raw material is hard to sell these days, due to covid, some
| countries try not to rely on lots of supply. Those material
| needs to be processed, package it up, put a cool story to it.
| gtvwill wrote:
| We get bout 15-20kgs 3 times a year from our hives. Spring,
| summer n autumn harvests.2 hives gives plenty for a family and
| all our friends :)
| freemint wrote:
| This seems to be target for people who runs agricultural farms
| which need bees for their other modes of profit.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe. Usually they contract out pollination. The cost of
| this machine seems to still make that more feasible.
|
| If it's a big monocrop place, then it probably still makes
| sense to contract pollination because you only need it for a
| short period during the year. You likely couldn't harvest any
| or much honey in the large monocrop fields because they would
| need that honey to support themselves the rest of the year
| when the monocrop is not flowering (or you'd heavily feed
| them).
|
| Smaller places, like local orchards, could maybe benefit, but
| only if they're willing/able to process and sell their own
| honey. Many small places can currently partner with
| beekeepers for little to no money. In some cases, beekeepers
| will even pay the orchard owners (usually in honey) for being
| able to place the hives there. So maybe the orchard could
| make a little extra profit. But it seems this machine costs
| money on a yearly basis. This could create a huge liability
| if you have a bad year.
| kkfx wrote:
| IMVHO the real point is another, that's just an experiment to
| see if and how we can change agriculture. The point is can we
| automate agriculture in a way to run on solar in a semi-
| autonomous way?
|
| If so berry-picking robots, these etc are just test pilot.
| Surely so far they are too costly, as any new thing, but if
| they prove to be reliable and usable enough things might
| change.
|
| We already have a certain dose of tech in agriculture but
| that's not good tech (cloud-bound by choice of the vendor,
| abusing the mean ignorance of their customers) but not
| something like "hey can we get rid of tractors and still be
| productive?", "can we farm poultry in automated fashion?", "can
| we harvest various crops in autonomous semi-self-sustainable
| ways?".
|
| We are probably 20 years behind, but we must start from
| something in a world who really lack public research...
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Depending where I put my hives, I can make 30 to 60lbs of honey
| with my "100 year old wooden box" technology.
|
| My ladies do not like "unnatural" (i.e. mostly plastic, metal)
| things. They will cover it with propolis quickly. They also do
| not seem to like electricity or odd magnetic fields, and things
| that constantly hum, like transformers.
|
| The listed things that the robot supposedly is doing (feeding,
| watering, treat illness & pests, harvest honey, prevent
| swarming, splitting & combining) are very inconsistent
| depending on my queens, hive to hive. Much of it is done by the
| hive herself. The rest is so cheap to do, it is but an a few
| hours per year per hive.
|
| It is not profitable to spend $57600/year for (looks like) 28
| hives. It is also seems to be going the John Deere route with
| the equipment. No thank you.
|
| And, the "bees are dying, the bees are dying!" is becoming
| tiresome.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Nice comments, but you're way off on the annual cost. It
| should be $400 x Beehome (24 beehives) x month, or $4,800 per
| year for 24 beehives. That's ~$200 per beehive per year.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. I miss-read it as monthly cost.
| giantg2 wrote:
| True. $200 per hive is still high in my opinion. Close to
| half of expected revenue for local honey (50 lbs avg at
| $10/lb). Then you have additional costs like bottling, the
| treatment chemicals, packages to replace lost hives, etc.
| femto wrote:
| Beekeepers also make money by renting out hives for
| pollination?
|
| Edit: Found an interesting article:
|
| https://theconversation.com/the-farmer-wants-a-hive-inside-t...
|
| To quote:
|
| "Alternatively, crop growers can buy their own hives and set
| them up permanently, eliminating the cost of rental and
| reducing the pressure on honeybees used for pollination
| services. However, this comes at its own cost. Growers need to
| maintain the beehives themselves or hire a beekeeper to do it."
|
| It seems like this robot may be aimed at farmers who want their
| own hives for pollination purposes, but also don't want the
| burden of looking after them?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe. The cost of this machine seems to still make
| contracting more feasible.
|
| If it's a big monocrop place, then it probably still makes
| sense to contract pollination because you only need it for a
| short period during the year. You likely couldn't harvest any
| or much honey in the large monocrop fields because they would
| need that honey to support themselves the rest of the year
| when the monocrop is not flowering (or you'd heavily feed
| them).
|
| Smaller places, like local orchards, could maybe benefit, but
| only if they're willing/able to process and sell their own
| honey. Many small places can currently partner with
| beekeepers for little to no money. In some cases, beekeepers
| will even pay the orchard owners (usually in honey) for being
| able to place the hives there. So maybe the orchard could
| make a little extra profit. But it seems this machine costs
| money on a yearly basis. This could create a huge liability
| if you have a bad year.
| berkes wrote:
| Whats more: big monocrop areas cannot sustain bees
| naturally. So they would die or become very unhealthy very
| fast.
|
| Bees need consistent food supply for the entire season.
| Which is why contractors travel around. When they leave the
| plum-orchards, they travel to the next place where they are
| needed and bees can have food.
|
| This is also the reason why "bees are dying". Apis
| Mellifara - the honeybee - isn't dying, we take good care
| of that. But many of the other insects are. Because
| monoculture cannot provide them food.
|
| Farmers used to specially source areas of their land for
| this long ago. A plum-orchard would have at least 10% of
| land with flowers, brambles, etc. To keep a healthy,
| natural population of pollinators around.
| mellavora wrote:
| Yes, my dad took the idea of a "tithe" and set aside 10%
| of the yard as "wild". Never touched it. I went into it a
| few times, but it always felt like a type of trespassing.
|
| Wish this was more of a common practice, though I know
| the (short-term) economic incentives are against it.
| znpy wrote:
| > Beekeepers also make money by renting out hives for
| pollination?
|
| The sad things of those practices is that the hive is
| stressed by being moved around a lot, and that hives are
| often used to impollinate but after pesticides have been used
| thius killing the hive.
|
| It happens very often, sadly.
| freemint wrote:
| Bees swarms are pretty much the only organism that consents
| to how it is treated. They stick around because it is
| easier that way.
| giantg2 wrote:
| This is true for the industrial size farms and industrial
| sized beekeeping operations.
|
| Smaller local farms and beekeepers can work together
| without these problems and without having to move hives, or
| at least not very often.
| mattferderer wrote:
| You might also enjoy this rabbit hole of bee thieves across
| California - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/feb/22/
| beekeepers-c...
|
| Interestingly enough, across the Midwest US, beekeepers tend
| to give farmers a case of honey if the farmers allow them to
| put bee hives on their land.
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