In this week’s episode of Voices of the Valley, Dick Rogers, Entomologist at Bayer Crop Science, discusses the need to meld nature and technology to create and monitor healthy honeybee colonies.

Dick wants to move towards the creation of a “genius hive,” which would use data to ensure the right conditions exist for thriving bee populations. Recently, “electronic scales have really helped beekeepers track weight gain and loss in hives,” he says. “There are also things like in-hive sensors for temperature and overall humidity.”

In the coming years, he says, chemical sensors could detect pheromones to give the beekeeper as much information as possible to track colony health.

“We need more than just visual inspections – we need data,” he says.

Listen to this week’s episode to learn about funding strategies for these technologies and the future of high-tech beekeeping.