Beekeeper develops ‘smart bee’ winter storage system

Designing “smart bee storage” to revolutionize the industry has been a labor of love for Israel Bravo for the past 15 years – and it appears it’s an idea whose time has come, given the success of a prototype facility this winter.  Bravo had looked far and wide to find a system that could dependably control the climate in a storage facility to keep bees healthy during their winter reprieve from pollinating crops and producing honey for human consumption.  He finally found it in the expertise at Agri-Stor, a Twin Falls company that has been designing potato cellars for 60 years. “I figured I would find that brain to control everything inside, but I didn’t think I’d find it in my backyard,” Bravo said. Bravo and Agri-Stor teamed up a year ago to design a building that would control temperature, humidity and CO2 levels and allow for smart phone monitoring to keep those elements stable, alert beekeeper to any problems and give the bees the quiet and the total darkness they need to stay healthy. With off-site monitoring, “you don’t have to disturb the bees. You want to keep things as quiet and dark as possible until it’s time to go to work,” he said. With almond orchards calling, that time has come — and the results look promising. Bees are coming out of storage healthier than they would in conventional storage. Frames are fuller, the bees are livelier and there’s more honey reserve to nourish them.