Welcome to the 4th Agricultural Revolution!

The 4th Agricultural Revolution (aka “Agriculture 4.0) comes to the applying of sensible applied sciences akin to synthetic intelligence, biotechnology, the web of items, giant information, and robotics to enhance potency and productiveness. As with earlier ag revolutions, it is going to most probably disrupt the status quo, together with that between beekeepers and industrial agriculture (and even perhaps for bee-keeping itself).

I wrote this newsletter in December, in order that it might be revealed as we get the solution to the $64,000 query — is the bee provide going to be quick or lengthy for almond pollination this season? From overdue November throughout the finish of January, migratory beekeepers communicate and debate concerning the anticipated call for for, and provide of, bees for almond pollination. We proportion observations and reviews and make guesses and monetary gambles. However yearly we don’t to find out what the true scenario is till early February, when the rubber hits the street.

However the street is also converting. Within the December factor of this magazine [[1]], my buddy Charlie Linder wrote a very good piece about two corporations whose trade plans have the possible to disrupt our trade. This can be the primary indicator of the way The 4th Agricultural Revolution might impact the beekeeping trade (Determine 1).

Welcome to the 4th Agricultural Revolution! Fig. 1 BeeHero is unabashedly happy with the disruption they’re inflicting [[2]]. They have got implemented “The Web of Issues” to hive inspections and grading for colony power. Flush with money from project capitalists, they’ve launched two Hollywood-quality gross sales movies — one for the growers, the opposite for beekeepers (each and every video claims that the objective target audience would make more cash; how that works in a zero-sum sport is past me).

Sensible notice: Our beekeeping trade, even though in large part dependent upon almond pollination, has finished a depressing process so far as attractive with the almond growers and instructing them about pollination biology and honey bee efficiency (rather than now not the usage of positive insecticides and looking to spray at night time). The growers are thus ripe for a just right gross sales pitch, particularly if they believe that they are able to get extra for much less.

Their technique labored, and BeeHero has turn into the biggest pollination supplier on the earth. To not be outdone, some other startup, additionally with a pile a chance capital at the back of it, has a unique thought for the way forward for pollination products and services (Determine 2).

Fig. 2 As an alternative of beekeepers hauling in truckloads of particular person hives, Beewise as a substitute need beekeepers to put their leased boxes conserving ten hives, mechanically controlled via Synthetic Intelligence. Some beekeepers are understandably skeptical, however once more, this corporate’s were given a large number of project capital at the back of it to spend on construction and promoting.

Each corporations wish to seize a proportion of the present $400 million almond pollination marketplace (focused on the kind of 10% paid for brokerage and grading products and services). Agricultural industries are understandably averse to disruption, however find it irresistible or now not, within the phrases of Greek thinker Heraclitus, “The one consistent is exchange itself.”

Sensible software: I’m now not selecting on those two corporations (the founders are very likeable), however they’re a harbinger of items to come back.

I believe that almost all hobbyists and sideliners will proceed to experience “old-fashioned” beekeeping practices, however so far as our industrial trade is anxious, it seems that that “the days they’re a-changin’.” Because of a lot of technological breakthroughs, there’s a new Agricultural Revolution beginning to happen.

The First Revolution (the Neolithic Revolution)

Round 12,000 years in the past, the discovery of farming (versus searching and collecting) marked a transition from a nomadic way of life to mounted settlements, because of the wish to attend cultivated fields [[3]]. Settlements and a gentle meals provide additionally allowed for the improvement of traders, craftspersons, and scientists. Farmers weren’t dumb, and briefly realized enhance their soils, irrigate, and selectively breed wild flowers for developments higher to their liking (Determine 3).

Fig. 3 I (at the side of Jeff Pettis) not too long ago had the nice fortune to talk over with the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru, and notice the rural plant breeding web page of Moray (elevation 11,500 feet). Constructed via the Incas within the 1400s, each and every precisely-crafted stone terrace (stuffed with transported soils), duplicated a unique microclimate of the Inca Empire, and allowed for the improvement of 1000’s of kinds of potatoes, corn, and different vegetation. Every terrace used to be in my opinion irrigated via underground culverts.

After seeing the implausible wisdom, ingenuity, and craftmanship of the Incas, it used to be glaring to us that even though expertise can advance, people indisputably aren’t getting any smarter!

The 2nd Revolution

This revolution passed off within the Netherlands and Britain between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries when farming turned into a trade (coinciding in later years with the Business Revolution) [[4]]. It consisted of the technological inventions of bigger farm sizes and a long way higher exertions productiveness, the enhanced plow, high-yield vegetation and crop rotation, chemical fertilizers, and higher selective breeding.

Beekeeping have been an agricultural trade since historic Mesopotamia and Egypt, however modified little till the “Beekeeping Revolution” of the 1850s and ‘60s, when Langstroth designed his hive, Moses Quinby invented the smoker and began “industrial” beekeeping, Johannes Mehring introduced us comb basis, and Franz Hruschka invented the centrifugal extractor. Rather then the usage of vans (fairly than horses) for shipping, many people in this day and age are nonetheless proud of the usage of best slightly-improved permutations of 1850s expertise!

I had the chance on the one centesimal anniversary of the Nationwide Honey Display in England to buy a number of beekeeping books revealed between 1890 and 1910 — how little our beekeeping has modified since (beekeepers have been simply as sensible, observant, and leading edge again then)!

The 3rd Revolution (the “Inexperienced Revolution”)

This revolution started with the discovery of tractors and vans with interior combustion engines throughout 1910-1920, which supposed that shall we delivery the usage of fossil fuels fairly than people and draft animals for exertions. But it surely in point of fact stuck wind within the Forties, when an Iowa-born agronomist named Norman Borlaug (who later gained the Nobel Prize for being “The Father of the Inexperienced Revolution”) started operating with Mexican scientists and farmers to use expertise realized in California: the usage of disease-resistant, high-yield vegetation, hybrid seeds, artificial fertilizers, and a brand new era of insecticides (particularly DDT).

In 1973, President Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, infamously informed farmers to “get giant or get out” and to “farm fencerow to fencerow.” And for the primary time since record-keeping started, according to capita farm source of revenue exceeded that of city American citizens.

After which, beginning in 1996, genetically-engineered vegetation hit the marketplace: Roundup In a position soybeans and corn, after which Bt corn turned into commercially to be had. Using glyphosate herbicides exploded (Determine 4), converting the face of agricultural lands, to the detriment of pollinators (because of loss of “weedy” forage). This used to be adopted via the creation of the neonicotinoid pesticides, and seed-treated vegetation — a debatable combined blessing, since they changed aerial spraying of a few different nasty merchandise.

Fig. 4 I shot this picture of a few small farms in California not too long ago, inspired via how each and every plot border had weed-free naked soil — fencepost to fencepost farming, with little or no non-crop forage.

The third Agricultural Revolution allowed the human inhabitants to blow up, however depends upon unsustainable artificial and extracted fertilizers, affordable exertions, overpumped water, and quite a lot of insecticides.

The Fourth Revolution (“Agriculture 4.0)

We’re now at first of the 4th Agricultural Revolution as digital expertise comes of age, and manufacturing agriculture contains the Web of Issues (IoT), Synthetic Intelligence (AI), blockchain and biotechnologies, gene modifying, robot exertions, precision allotting of agrochemicals, vertical farming, and solar power (and who is aware of what else). Agriculture 4.0 is “thrilling — in addition to a little horrifying … however then the 2 continuously move in combination” [[5]].

So let’s set the scene for a way this revolution might impact our trade:

Again in February 2005 — because of miticide-resistant varroa, the invasive wave of Nosema (Varimorpha) ceranae, and different virus and illness problems -— for the primary time, beekeepers have been not able to offer just about sufficient bees for almond pollination in California. Growers answered via tripling the presented value for hive condominium, and the following 12 months grudgingly paid much more, at which level I wrote to the editors of each beekeeping industry journals, stating that our trade had handed a watershed second — for the primary time, the source of revenue gained via beekeepers for pollinating almonds surpassed the source of revenue from overall honey gross sales via our whole trade. We have been now as a lot a pollination trade as we have been honey manufacturers, and maximum industrial beekeepers were using at the coattails of the almond growers ever since (earning from almond pollination vs. honey were operating neck and neck).

Sensible software: We’re awfully dependent upon the pollination wishes of a unmarried crop!

Within the November factor of this magazine [[6]] Ron Phipps had a really perfect article concerning the unfavourable have an effect on on honey costs because of having to compete in opposition to “pretend” and “adulterated” honey produced and exported from China and a couple of different international locations. Chris Hiatt, as President of the American Honey Manufacturers affiliation, spoke at Apimondia about honey meals fraud and the way devastating the economically motivated adulteration of honey is to small family-owned enterprises all the way through the arena (to not point out our massive industrial honey manufacturers).

Sensible software: Hauling hives to pollinate almonds is a expensive ache within the rear. Or even these days’s excessive condominium charges don’t duvet running prices for the season, so the beekeeper nonetheless wishes further resources of source of revenue — honey most often being the principle one. However affordable imported pretend honey utilized by the meals trade lowers the base line for all honey costs, and threatens the viability of our respectable home honey manufacturers.

When varroa arrived, missing resistant bee inventory, we jumped immediately to artificial miticides as a stopgap measure (Determine 5).

Fig. 5 It is a Powerpoint slide that I created for instance the IPM pyramid for varroa. Regulate of varroa with any artificial miticide is just a stopgap measure — we’ve watched fluvalinate and coumaphos fail. Amitraz has held the mite at bay for a very long time, however the writing’s at the wall.

Our industrial beekeepers, via now not rotating remedies with other modes of motion, were remarkably a hit at selectively breeding for resistant mites. Certainly, some beekeepers at the moment are making 15-20 programs of amitraz a 12 months. With out taxpayer-funded ELAP bills, many industrial operators could be hurting.

Sensible software: Because of the loss of any new “silver bullets,” many industrial beekeepers are after all having to discover ways to use natural acids and thymol. However the actual revolution will happen when our industrial queen manufacturers are after all ready to offer confirmed mite-resistant inventory (that is probably not lengthy!).

In abstract, our present scene is that our beekeeping trade is part dependent upon excessive condominium charges for almond pollination, is being harm via low honey costs because of festival from pretend honey, and is coping with the wish to shift from amitraz. The Fourth Agricultural Revolution will contain all 3, particularly with reference to almonds, so let’s delivery with that first.

Call for from the Almond Trade

The almond trade has been on a joyride for just about two decades, and we beekeepers were alongside for the experience. However as with all different crop, if it’s successful, it is going to sooner or later get overplanted, and provide will exceed call for. That’s the placement now for the almond growers — there’s a glut of almonds in the marketplace, so the fee has dropped (Determine 6). On the similar time, fertilizer and all different running prices are skyrocketing.

Fig. 6 A glut of nuts! Is the joyride over? Picture credit score Todd Fitchette, Farm Growth.

Sensible software: Growers are feeling the pinch, and are striking force on beekeepers to drop their costs (it’s roughly a sport of hen) or to scale back at the stocking fee.

Local weather Alternate and the Sustainable Floor Water Act

The California Central Valley has lengthy been the premier spot to develop almond bushes, and we stock over 80% of the arena’s call for for this tasty and nutritious nut. However our present farming strategies are unsustainable, particularly with reference to the water provide.

For somewhat a couple of years now, it’s been a race to the ground, as farmers competed to peer who may possibly drill the inner most effectively to pump treasured water out of the bottom, ensuing within the subsidence of the soil degree all the way through the San Joaquin Valley (Determine 7).

Fig. 7 Almonds are grown all the way through the California Central Valley. The Sacramento Valley is to the north, however the majority of orchards are within the southern San Joaquin Valley (proven). Land subsidence because of overpumping there was shocking. This chart presentations the collection of meters of subsidence between 1926 and 1970 [[7]](one darkish house had dropped a complete of 30 ft)! The velocity has slowed a little, however will increase in dry years when there may be much less floor water to be had.

In consequence, California is instituting the Sustainable Groundwater Control Act (SGMA). That, drought, and local weather exchange are forcing some growers to desert their orchards, or convert the land for different vegetation or makes use of (akin to pistachios, agave, or sun panels).

Sensible software: There is also a lower in call for for hives, a minimum of for the following couple of years.

And there’s an extra attainable disruptor at the close to horizon:

Growth in Almond Breeding

Almond pollination is all concerning the intercourse act — the switch of pollen grains from the male anthers to the feminine pistils, typically between two self-incompatible cultivars. However what grower needs to pay giant cash for a beekeeper to haul in pollinators? So plant breeders have labored to grow self-fertile almond cultivars, akin to Independence (which now accounts for approximately 8% of bearing acreage [[8]].

Fortuitously for the ones folks within the pollination biz, even Independence advantages from bees (even though stocked at best part the traditional collection of hives according to acre). However there’s a brand new nut locally — Yorizane is a self-pollinating almond selection advanced via USDA’s Agricultural Analysis Carrier, with excellent client developments akin to measurement, colour, and taste [[9]]. Yorizane has been in box trials since 2014, and because of its flower construction, would possibly not want bees in any respect [[10]].

Sensible software: Yorizane might effectively displace the present preferred cultivar, Nonpareil. If that is so, we migratory beekeepers (to not point out BeeHero and Beewise) may possibly lose a very powerful supply of source of revenue. Except we work out maintain honey fraud, we might be in deep trouble.

The Web

The web has been a combined blessing for beekeepers. We not best have the arena’s libraries at our fingertips, however are affected by knowledge overload — a lot of it faulty, biased, sensationalized for advertising functions, or simply junk. Again within the day, revealed knowledge used to be most often filtered via editors, who reviewed, checked, and corrected it. As I in the past discussed, there have been of quite a lot of well-written and informative beekeeping books and journals via 1900. “The British Beekeepers’ Information Ebook” had via 1904 already offered 50,000 copies (one for each and every thousand Britons), and used to be freeing a 2d version (this on height of a lot of different very good beekeeping books to be had for a beekeeper to learn at their recreational).

Examine this to beekeepers these days getting a lot in their knowledge from the display of a mobile phone. The most typical factor that I pay attention from beekeepers these days is that “I noticed on the web that…” (Determine 8).

Fig. 8 I were given over 5 million effects for a seek for elementary knowledge on beekeeping! And but we stay listening to of colony loss charges being unacceptably excessive. An excessive amount of knowledge is also worse than too little. Regardless of such a lot knowledge being to be had, I’m nonetheless conscious about the level of my lack of information of bee biology, and frequently hit lifeless ends when looking for solutions to necessary questions.

Public Belief, Sensationalism, and Centered Promoting

Any time you have a look at a pc or mobile phone display, a billboard, TV, newspaper, or mag, you might be frequently being brainwashed via promoting designed to clutch your consideration. The honey bee has been hijacked as a poster kid via any crew short of to lift cash or promote a product. Even supposing this has created an enormous interest call for for many who wish to lend a hand “save the bees,” we beekeepers will have to frequently pay attention to, and counteract, any unfavourable perceptions about our trade or our merchandise (particularly honey). All the time be mindful the lesson of the Alar Scare — when sensationalized fearmongering “information” briefly devasted the apple trade [[11]]. Media shops vie for the catchiest headlines (Determine 9).

Fig. 9 The above headline in The Dad or mum [[12]] and Males’s Magazine [[13]] were given the eye of customers, particularly the ones in Europe. Such perceptions can cut back the call for for almonds, which might not directly harm the ones folks who receives a commission for pollination.

Input the Technogeeks

For some explanation why, many innovators finish up sitting with me on my deck, asking my opinion in their whiz-bang invention, having questions about how they may enhance and advertise, and infrequently asking me to advise or collaborate. Plenty of them are technogeeks appearing up with what I name “an answer in search of an issue.” Those are basically hive tracking gadgets and techniques that previously would have best been of hobby to a subset of researchers, however now are to be had to any beekeeper short of to determine anything else about their hives via taking a look at their display screen.

Web of Issues (IoT) and Hive Tracking

Beekeeping is exertions in depth, and prefer different farm animals husbandry, creating a benefit could be very a lot dependent upon how effectively the beekeeper understands and screens the well being in their colonies, whilst minimizing their quantity of work. The Web of Issues refers to a community of bodily gadgets, cars, home equipment, and different bodily items which are embedded with sensors, device and community connectivity that lets them gather and proportion information. Far flung tracking of colonies might loose a beekeeper from the wish to bodily open a hive to “check out” it.

Sensible software: For the ones beekeepers to hand with a pc or mobile phone, a global of techno-monitoring apparatus is to be had — there at the moment are quite a lot of gadgets to be had to trace temperature and humidity, weight acquire or loss, bee flight, swarm preparation, mite ranges or hive robbery, or to arrange recordkeeping (Determine 10).

Fig. 10 There at the moment are any collection of apps to be had for hive tracking and recordkeeping. Recommendation: if you happen to’re on a date, don’t let her catch you paying extra consideration to a hive than to her!

Name me “old-fashioned,” however perceive I started preserving bees previous to the discovery of cellphones and computer systems, and love operating open air and getting grimy. Not anything is extra exciting to me than the power emanating from a hive in springtime, reveling in an plentiful nectar and pollen waft. And the enjoyment of seeing a queen that I reared on a really perfect body of brood. Even supposing many people love the magic and way of life of beekeeping, and the soul-smoothing vibe that we revel in each and every time we open a hive, a beekeeper now has the choice of tracking their hives from a pc display of their place of business. Interest and sideline beekeepers will in fact proceed our reference to Nature, however the industrial trade is now grappling with adapting to new applied sciences.

Sensible software: Those gadgets give curious beekeepers a possibility to achieve perception into what’s taking place of their hives, however industrial guys might basically be extra fascinated with a easy machine that indicators them each and every morning to any wanted motion pieces of their outyards (which is able to in large part be decided via easy weight tracking).

Advances in Era

Plastics in Beekeeping

It used to be tough for me to change to plastic basis, however I’ve held the road there — I’m in my view hesitant to make use of plastics that I will’t recycle. So how about polystyrene hives? They have got positive benefits (bears like them), however my query is, what are you going to do with them after they put on out? They don’t seem to be lately economical to recycle, are critically polluting if burned, and will create an environmental mess as they degrade. We’re going to wish to come to phrases with non-burnable bee apparatus.

Top-Tech Pretend Honey vs. Top-Tech Trying out

Fraudsters have discovered produce pretend or adulterated “honey” from less expensive components, akin to sugar syrups created from cane, corn, rice, or beets, or from unripe harvested nectar, filtered via complicated resin expertise, and spiked with components to move conventional strategies of trying out for purity. So it’s now a technological race between the fraudsters and the testers (Determine 11).

Fig. 11 Dr. Peter Awram of True Honey Buzz [[14]] the usage of nuclear magnetic resonance expertise to spot honey to its supply

Agriculture 4.0 has additionally introduced concerning the daybreak of artificial or cultured (vs. naturally-grown) meals, akin to plant-based meat possible choices, vegan cheese, lab-grown meat, and artificial “honey” (Determine 12).

Fig.12 MeliBio [[15]] is a startup that has taken artificial honey to a brand new degree, via promoting it with the pitch that “the industrial manufacturing of honey is destroying the biodiversity of our planet and wiping out our local bee populations. … By way of opting for MeliBio’s honey with out bees, you’re becoming a member of us in our challenge to create a kinder, extra sustainable destiny for people and bees alike.”

To not be outdone, Israeli startup Bee-io is on their tail (Determine 13).

Fig. 13 Bee-io [[16]] promotes their product via claiming that “cultivated honey is natural, baby-safe, and 100% bee-free” and “missing the dangerous fabrics which are quite common in herbal honey.” They usually move on:

“Bee-io goals to get rid of human vitamin dependency on bees. The present means of honey manufacturing endangers bees and ends up in escalating costs … the honey produced [by bees] might include toxins, insecticides, and antibiotics.”

Caution! Those corporations are attainable disruptors in 3 ways:

They’re hijacking the title “honey” for a product that isn’t honey.
The principle explanation why that individuals pay extra for honey than they do for sugar is their belief that honey is a extra herbal and “more fit” sweetener, and that they’re serving to the bees. The selling methods of those corporations are to badmouth herbal honey, honey bees, and beekeepers (learn Melibio’s damning document at [[17]]). This kind of disparaging promoting offers us and our product a black eye.
And if those legitimate corporations could make pretend honey indistinguishable from the actual factor, the black-market fraudsters is probably not a long way at the back of!

Sensible software: I’m now not transparent on how making pretend honey from sugars extracted from agricultural vegetation may also be extra eco-friendly than honey created from nectar harvested from wildflowers, however it’s transparent that the business plan of those corporations (awash in money for promoting) might be to disparage our herbal product. Our trade must create a role drive to deal with this factor!

New Innovations and Merchandise

The Israeli Startups

Israel has been nicknamed the “startup capital of the arena,” because it has probably the most start-ups according to capita. In search of a bigger marketplace, many Israeli ag-related startups come to California, so I’m now not stunned that a number of have proven up at my position. When the innovators inquire from me who their attainable marketplace may well be, I give an explanation for the variations between the interest vs. the industrial markets, and the truth that maximum beekeepers don’t do it for the cash, however fairly as a result of they love preserving bees, being open air in nature, and the difficult way of life concerned.

So I’ve two times urged {that a} startup would possibly have higher good fortune pitching their product to the large fruit and nut growers (I now kinda feel sorry about making that advice).

Sensible software: I’ve in the past labored with two startups funded via project capital. The ones traders gamble giant cash, hoping for an eventual massive go back on their funding. So this places large force at the startup to start out appearing good fortune, so I’m now not stunned that those startups are approaching robust.

The Brokering of Pollination Services and products

BeeHero advanced an IoT tracking instrument that they declare can inform you a wide variety of items about your colonies, particularly how robust they’re (they have got not too long ago invited me to substantiate their declare within the orchards). To start with they attempted promoting their machine to beekeepers, however then shifted to as a substitute focused on the growers paying for pollination products and services, with the motto “Get Top rate Bees & Pollinate Your Vegetation With Precision.”

I’ve pollinated almonds for over 40 years. My favourite contracts are the ones during which 10% of our hives are randomly graded for power via the dealer, and we receives a commission accordingly — a tradition that I strongly give a boost to, since now not best does the grower get what they’ve paid for, however we get rewarded for having robust colonies [[18]].

BeeHero claims in an effort to do just that (however grading each and every unmarried hive): “BeeHero’s challenge is to ship pollination responsibility for industrial crop growers, via leveraging giant information analytics and system studying to lend a hand them mitigate pollination chance.”

Sensible software: The ones folks who’ve loved fats assessments for almond since CCD, are beginning to see disruption of {our relationships} with “our” growers and established agents. Once more, I’m now not announcing that is just right or dangerous, however now not each and every beekeeper or dealer is proud of a newcomer muscling in, nor short of to signal a freelance with an organization that calls for them to put an digital track in each and every one among their hives. It’s gonna be “fascinating” to peer how this all works out!

Mechanical Pollination

Very similar to the ones hawking the “honey possible choices” who’re telling us to get rid of bees from the image, corporations concerned with robotics are looking to do the similar factor with reference to the honey bees’ different nasty dependancy — that of pollinating plants (Figures 14-16).

Fig. 14 Israeli startup Edete Precision Applied sciences for Agriculture’s proprietary 2BeTM self reliant pollinator. The corporate is operating trials in California almonds [[19]].

Fig. 15 The StickBug from West Virginia College, which might be used for greenhouse and vertical farm pollination

Fig 16 After which there are startups and universities creating miniature drones to accomplish robot pollination (however now not insemination). “Dutch scientists say they are able to create swarms of bee-like drones to take over if the bugs die out.” Symbol from [[20]].

Sensible software: I will see a possible marketplace for mechanical pollination in greenhouses, however can’t consider the logistics of the upkeep and battery charging concerned with a swarm of robot drones. Once I’ve monitored colony flight in almonds on cool or wet days, foragers might best fly for not up to an hour. The large merit to the grower is that honey bees don’t wish to be programmed, or saved for 9 months of the 12 months — they’re desperate to pollinate blossoms the instant that the temperature is excessive sufficient for the pistils to be receptive.

Robotics

California farmers and industrial beekeepers have lengthy depended upon affordable exertions from professional and hard-working staff from Mexico and somewhere else, who have been keen to accomplish the physically-demanding, scorching, and grimy paintings that spoiled American citizens have been unwilling to do. However this exertions pool is contracting, and technologists interested by robotics are seeing marketplace alternatives for a 4th Agricultural Revolution. This additionally applies to beekeeping.

The Israeli corporate Beewise (discussed at first of this newsletter) has invented the BeeHome — an enclosed container that holds hives of bees, and will manipulate each and every body mechanically, the usage of AI to spot bees, brood, and honey, in addition to illness. Their machine is in reality exceptional.

Their marketing strategy is now to hire those boxes to beekeepers, and supply pollination products and services to growers. Beekeepers then run their bees in BeeHomes, hanging the boxes in spaces of forage (the place the beekeeper could make honey) whilst now not on pollination contracts. (I’m now not transparent on how concerned a beekeeper will in reality be with hands-on control in their colonies, nor the specifics in their contract.)

Sensible software: Many people are using at the coattails of the almond growers, who might sooner or later now not even want us. In the intervening time, be expecting some disruption as Beewise competes with BeeHero to take over pollination products and services, even though I believe that there’ll nonetheless be a spot for unbiased beekeepers and old-school established agents for some time.

Synthetic intelligence (AI)

I left this scorching matter ‘til remaining. From an IBM webpage: “Synthetic intelligence leverages computer systems and machines to imitate the problem-solving and decision-making functions of the human thoughts.”

Synthetic intelligence (AI) has limitless (and horrifying) attainable. It’s an enormous unknown that might totally revolutionize agriculture, and both after all separate people from nature, or let us experience “digital” nature, or in all probability someway “cut back” the scale of the human inhabitants to come back into stability with Earth’s ecosystems in a sustainable approach.

Massive-scale industrial agriculture will probably be the primary to include Agriculture 4.0. A farm is also controlled via AI, which might make a choice probably the most successful vegetation to plant, instruct the GPS-coordinated self-driving tractors accurately the place to plant and fertilize, and regulate the robot weeders and harvesters to finish the process. Will industrial beekeeping take the similar trail?

However, quite a lot of us experience dwelling at the land, rising our personal meals, tending our bees, and dwelling with nature. The one consistent is exchange. The arena has modified enormously in my lifetime; it’s tough to consider how it is going to glance when my grandchildren are my age.

For what it’s value, ChatGPT informed me that “The Fourth Agricultural Revolution … poses demanding situations that may require steady adaptation, collaboration, and leading edge answers inside the beekeeping trade.”

Sensible software: I’ll give AI the final word. I questioned whether or not Synthetic Intelligence may possibly remedy the vintage beekeeping difficulty: “Ask ten beekeepers a query, and also you’ll get fifteen other solutions.” So I in fact ran an experiment. I requested ChatGPT the query “Must I insulate my beehive?” and were given a really nice generic solution. I then requested the similar query two times once more, and gained an absolutely other solution each and every time. Nope, AI didn’t remedy the issue. However the remaining paragraph of some of the solutions gave me hope (Determine 17).

Fig. 17 ChatGPT wrapped up its generic solution (now not understanding that all of us stay the similar species) via sending us again to human beekeepers for recommendation. So it’s also possible to move forward and ask ten of them for his or her reviews!

Comments

Beekeeper Derek Lewis identified that had we beekeepers now not risen to the problem of pollinating the large crop monocultures, that the human inhabitants would possibly not have grown to its present overload.

[1] Linder, C (2023) BeeHero and Beewise. American Bee Magazine 163(12): 1339-1342.

[2] Symbol from https://www.beehero.io/information/beehero-makes-the-2023-cnbc-disruptor-top-50-list

[3] https://intellidigest.com/food-production/agriculture-4-0-the-fourth-revolution/

[4] https://populationeducation.org/a-timeline-of-the-three-major-agricultural-revolutions-in-history/

[5] https://www.oliverwyman.com/content material/dam/oliver-wyman/v2/publications/2021/apr/agriculture-4-0-the-future-of-farming-technology.pdf

[6] Phipps, R (2023) World Honey Marketplace Document. American Bee Magazine 163(11): 1169-1174.

[7] https://www.usgs.gov/media/pictures/land-subsidence-san-joaquin-valley-california-1926-70

[8] https://www.almonds.com/websites/default/information/2023-04/2022_NASS_Acreage.pdf

[9] https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/information/research-news/2021/researchers-develop-self-pollinating-almond-with-a-gold-mine-of-tasty-traits/

[10] https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/downloadpdf/journals/hortsci/56/9/article-p1142.xml

[11] https://www.acsh.org/information/1999/02/01/an-unhappy-anniversary-the-alar-scare-ten-years-later

[12] https://www.theguardian.com/surroundings/2020/jan/07/honeybees-deaths-almonds-hives-aoe#maincontent