Smart apiaries: Why techies are getting into bees

Smart hives are gaining traction in Ukraine, transforming beekeeping into an accessible and interesting business. Within two to three years, it is possible to build a strong business with export potential. But is technology alone enough?

Anatolii Dobrynskyi, co-founder of the IT company Diya, started the Pasika project with a colleague early last year. The tech enthusiasts ventured into beekeeping from scratch, setting up on a half-hectare plot in the Zhytomyr Oblast. Their ambitious plan is to bring Ukrainian honey to the export market.

The goal is indeed sweet, as the global honey market grows every year. This year, its volume has surpassed $9 billion.

Ukraine is firmly among the top five exporters, selling thousands of tons of honey. However, Ukrainian honey is inexpensive, with a customs value of around $2 per kg. In contrast, New Zealand's manuka honey sells for $80 per kg on the export market. There's room for growth.

Raising prices through quality, ensured by process automation, is the strategy new beekeepers have chosen.

Hives operate like factories

As a business model, an apiary resembles a manufacturing company with dozens or even hundreds of "workshops"—hives. Each hive has 60,000 to 80,000 "workers" operating for the owner. This is the average size of a strong bee colony. The insects work without unions, strikes, sick leave, or days off, but they do take a long winter break.

Equipping hives with temperature and humidity sensors and ensuring online connectivity allows IT beekeepers to monitor key performance parameters via mobile phones. The next step is setting up raw material supplies (nectar plants) for the hives, extracting honey, and packaging it—bingo!

But real business also involves competition, especially in terms of ideas. At the same time, another team in Ukraine has launched a similar project.

Changing concept: agro-drones helping bees

In the summer of 2023, the first smart apiary with 10 futuristic hives opened in the village of Hrebinky near Kyiv. This initiative was led by Ihor Kurdin. A few months earlier, his startup, AmoHive, won the European Bee Award, earning €4,000 ($4,350). The project's primary goal is to demonstrate the efficiency of bees as pollinators that increase crop productivity, from sunflowers to orchards.

Ihor Kurdin points out that people usually associate bees with honey.

"It's important to understand that bees are primarily pollinators. Thanks to them, according to UN data, an additional $200–230 billion worth of products is generated globally. This impact is unmatched by the global honey market," says the founder of AmoHive.

Each AmoHive smart hive is equipped with sensors and electronic scales powered by solar panels. According to representatives from companies that manufacture these hives, each "home" costs between 20,000 and 25,000 UAH ($485-$600).

Serhiy Tonkovyd, who was a professional beekeeper at AmoHive before being mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine, says that the technical equipment of the hives allows for extensive analytical work.

Firstly, they found that bees become significantly more efficient at pollinating plants with the help of Japanese biochemistry technology. During the flowering period, sunflower fields were sprayed with an attractant using agro-drones to enhance pollination.

"In a week, a bee colony collects 20 kg of honey from such fields," says Serhiy Tonkovyd.

Secondly, smart hives made it possible to objectively evaluate the productivity of different bee breeds. The Hrebinky apiary compared the results of three breeds: Carpathian, Ukrainian steppe, and Carniolan.

"Under Kyiv's conditions, Carniolan bees performed best. This breed combines high productivity with minimal swarming tendencies, ensuring a stable work rhythm," says Serhiy Tonkovyd.

Farmers are also satisfied. According to Oleksandr Oliinyk, head of product development at Summit Agro Ukraine (the local branch of the Japanese agrochemical corporation Sumitomo), the combination of bee pollination and attractants increases sunflower and canola yields by up to 15%.

"There's an even greater effect in orchards. Pear trees see a 30% increase in fertility thanks to the bee-attractant tandem," says Oleksandr Oliinyk.

Bee quirks

Currently, the Pasika project in Zhytomyr outpaces AmoHive in scale, with 80 bee colonies transported in groups closer to fields with nectar plants.

But only about ten of these are smart hives—one at each location, serving as an information hub. Regular hives are three times cheaper than smart ones. They also opted for a simple setup using Microsoft 365 and SharePoint to cut costs, essential as Pasika plans two expansion phases with limited financial resources.

Anatolii Dobrynskyi avoids discussing investments, stating only that "hundreds of thousands of hryvnias" have been spent so far. Most of these funds went toward preparing for export, building a facility for honey extraction and packaging with automated lines. Next year, the project aims to grow to 300 working hives, and by 2026, it plans to reach a peak of 800 colonies—a tenfold increase.

"At first, it seemed like working with bees would be easy. But many factors come into play—from the quality of the colony and hives to the weather. In the end, if the bees don’t like their environment, they can swarm and abandon the hive in under an hour," Dobrynskyi says.

So it turns out bees do have something like a union. At least, strikes do happen.

That’s precisely why smart hives are essential, says Serhiy Tonkovyd. According to him, even a schoolkid could manage a smart hive—but it requires understanding how bees operate.

"The behavior of bees—tens of thousands of individual creatures not controlled by a central command—is highly coordinated and precisely aligned to achieve a common goal. For instance, defending their home, the hive. This is called Swarm Intelligence," says Ihor Kurdin.