s an undergraduate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Eliyah Radzyner developed an unexpected passion: honeybees. While pursuing a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture, he began taking courses on beekeeping, keeping his own hives as a hobby, and growing increasingly fond of the humble creatures. “They’re very, very similar to us. They have personalities, and they make decisions, and they regulate the temperature of the hive, just like we regulate the temperature of our body,” he says. “There are a lot of similarities, and that’s what got me interested at first.”

Upon graduation, he flipped his passion into a career as a commercial beekeeper. But in spite of his best efforts, Radzyner kept running into the same problem. His colonies were dying at alarming rates. “Every time you go out, you return with some empty [bee] boxes,” he says. “The feeling is that you’re always too late.”

The challenges facing honeybees have shifted radically in recent years, but the technology used by beekeepers—a profession often passed down through generations—hasn’t meaningfully evolved. Most modern beehive designs are based on the simple Langstroth hive, invented by a Pennsylvanian of the same name and patented in 1852. But in the 170 years since, the role of honeybees in global agriculture has completely evolved, as have the threats they face.

Radzyner felt it was time for the status quo to change. A fortuitous meeting with Saar Safra, who had previously launched multiple tech companies, led to their 2018 founding of Beewise. The San Ramon, California-based company creates artificial intelligence-powered BeeHomes that protect honeybee colonies from threats such as pesticides and parasites. The technology can reduce bee colony deaths by a whopping 70 percent, which has a significant implication: “You give bees a fighting chance, and you give us humans a steady global food supply,” says Safra, who is Beewise’s CEO.

Honeybees are a crucial component of global agriculture, because of their roles as pollinators. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that pollinators add more than $18 billion in revenue annually to crop production. Some staple crops do not need bees for pollination, but others are highly dependent, according to Ohio State University entomologist Reed Johnson. Without bees, he says, “we wouldn’t starve to death, but life would be less interesting and certainly less healthy.” A world without honeybees would also be more expensive, particularly in the case of a crop like almonds, which rely on bees for about 90 percent of their pollination.

The rate at which managed honeybee colonies die every year, close to 50 percent in the U.S., is due to a range of factors including decreased availability of foraged food, increased use of pesticides, extreme weather, and pests like the deadly varroa mite. “It’s become a lot more work to keep the honeybees healthy,” says Johnson.

Soon after its founding, Beewise built a prototype for its smart beehive, which would come to be called the BeeHome, and in 2019, it raised a $3.5 million seed round. It launched its first commercial product in 2020. The company has been iterating on its technology ever since.

The latest version of Beewise’s artificial intelligence-powered beehive is the BeeHome 4, released in the fall of 2023 and deployed to farms earlier this year. It is an 11-foot-long, rectangular box made of iron and aluminum that can host up to 10 colonies of bees. The homes are outfitted with internal cameras and a robotic arm, and contain insulation and ventilation to help bees thermoregulate their colonies. When prompted by a remote beekeeper, the arm performs tasks like refilling bee feed, administering medication, and moving frames within the home. The home also has a feature that remotely closes down entrances to prevent bees from exiting the hive during pesticide application, extreme weather, or transportation. Where AI comes into the mix is through computer vision. By examining visual data from the internal cameras, the AI model can assess the state of the bees and make recommendations for care. The BeeHome 4 was also designed to seamlessly work with existing industry infrastructure.

Radzyner says the latest BeeHome model won’t be the last. “We’re continuously trying to improve the product,” he says. “Just like with your iPhone, we’re always working on a next, improved version.” Safra says bee colonies in BeeHomes die at an annual rate of about 7.56 percent with the current model, whereas the industry average in the U.S. is about 48 percent.

The company operates by partnering with beekeepers through a revenue-sharing model: Beewise provides its technology to beekeepers, and they both share the revenue from growers and honey buyers. Radzyner says the company is on track to hit $40 million in revenue by the close of the year and could double it the following.

Although the challenges facing honeybees may continue to mount in a world shaped by climate change, Radzyner says he hopes the BeeHome can help them survive. “Those challenges are the same in the BeeHome and in a regular hive,” he says, “but the ability to support the bees in the face of those challenges is the difference.”