Beewise

The beekeeper's response-time problem

About a third of the world's food depends on pollination, and most of it is done by commercial hives moved from field to field. The beekeeper's main problem is response time: he visits a hive once every few weeks, and by the time he discovers a varroa mite infestation, starvation or collapse, it is already too late. Beewise, founded in 2018 by Saar Safra (co-founder and CEO, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post), built a device meant to close exactly this gap.

BeeHome: a hive with eyes and a robotic arm

BeeHome is a container holding dozens of frames, with cameras, a robotic arm, climate control and a treatment system inside. A computer vision model scans the frames continuously and identifies the state of the brood, food, the queen, parasite infestations or signs of swarming, and the system acts on its own: it feeds, heats or cools, treats mites with a heat-based method without pesticides, and splits off a swarm before it leaves. According to the company's official announcement, BeeHome reduces bee mortality by about 80%, increases yield by at least 50%, and cuts about 90% of the manual work compared with a traditional hive. The beekeeper gets the picture on his phone and steps in only when needed.

Funding path: from Series A to Series D

The funding rounds: $10 million in a Series A (2020); $80 million in a Series C in March 2022 led by Insight Partners, which brought cumulative funding to about $120 million, according to the company's official announcement; and $50 million in a Series D in June 2025, which brought the cumulative amount to about $170 million.

Deployment in California and continuous data

The main deployment is in California, where crops such as almonds depend on commercial pollination on a huge scale. Beyond the direct benefit to the beekeeper, the device creates something that did not exist before: continuous data on the state of the hive. Until now, knowledge about colony collapse relied mainly on annual surveys and after-the-fact reporting, while daily monitoring makes it possible to identify which early signs appear before a collapse, and in what order.

In 2026 the business side of the deployment came up too. Beewise acts as a broker between beekeepers and almond orchards in California. In September 2026 it was reported that beekeepers from several US states were still waiting for hundreds of thousands of dollars for 2026 pollination. According to the report, the company had sued at least three almond growers, seeking about $520,000 it says it was not paid. CEO Saar Safra said: "We're not the ones who actually have the funds or decide whether to pay or not."

Limits of the technological approach

The scientific literature attributes colony collapse to a combination of parasites, pesticides, diseases, poor nutrition and habitat loss. A smart hive deals with some of the factors inside the hive itself, but does not change the environment outside it, so it reduces damage rather than removing the cause. It is also worth noting that the mortality reduction rates are the company's own figure, not a finding of independent, peer-reviewed research.