Helping New Zealand’s commercial bee keepers get more out of their hives is the goal of a start-up that marries together the best of the tech world with solid, Kiwi knowhow.
Until now most of New Zealand’s 880,000 registered bee hives have produced honey without the beekeepers knowing for sure how the hive is operating until the day of harvest.
Typically the first opportunity a bee keeper has to see how a hive is performing is on the day of harvesting –usually involving helicopters, trucks and personnel. By then, it’s too costly to change the harvesting schedule.
ModuSense has built an industrial-grade solution that provides weight, temperature and humidity information in real time beamed directly back to the beekeeper to review.
ModuSense founder Bruce Trevarthen says the goal is to help beekeepers better understand their hives and know when to go in to get the maximum yield.
“We place sensors in the hive to test for temperature and humidity and put the whole thing on a purpose-built scale to measure weight. Information is sent back to the bee keeper via wireless signal or by satellite for truly remote operations.”
More? Paul Brislen: paul@brislen.nz
or phone 021 988 896.
