The B App Brings Beekeeping into the 21st Century

There is a fragility and uniqueness to Arizona’s environment that makes it challenging for beekeepers. But those challenges make for some of the best honey production in the country. Vicente Gonzalez, President of Arizona Apiaries has accepted the challenge, becoming the first beekeeper in his family.

“We produce some of the best honey in the country,” he says. “Mainly we produce honey from the desert and the desert does not allow pesticides so beekeepers in Arizona produce really good honey.”

Bees, and the honey they produce, benefit humans in a myriad of ways. Their honey reduces the effects of allergies, heals burns and the pollen they gather is pollen that we don’t breathe in the air. Balms, wax candles and honey are just some of the products that we produce from the bees’ labor so it is important to respect our tiny buzzing friends.

“In your neighborhood it is important to have bees,” says Mr. Gonzalez. “If you don’t bother them they’re not going to bother you. They are looking for food and pollinating their plants, just let them do what they have to do.”

The Emergence of Bee Tech

Beekeeping is a an old tradition rooted in passed-down methods from generation to generation. But as with all things, technology is aiding in the development and improvement of some of those ancient techniques.

Logan Clancey, Sales Manager for Bee Technologies, touts the benefits of The B App and how it can assist apiaries account for variables in production. “Now we can look at graphs per location and say we’re making this much honey in one yard, why are we not making equal amounts in every location? So we can put a control on all of the variables.”

For Vicente Gonzalez, technology has helped him improve his production immensely. “In the bee industry we started needing technology. It’s hard to control everything. With The B App I can track all my bees, we can have records of the honey production, we can have records of when we need to start harvesting and when we need to start feeding the bees.”

And though the rise of technology and the rapid expansion of humans over the planet has caused a great stress on other species, including bees, there is hope that technologies like The B App can help mitigate some of the stresses on the bee population.

“We need to do what it takes to protect the bees and grow the bee population because honey is an important aspect of life,” says Mr. Clancey. “Without bees we wouldn’t have life.”