> This design is not very different to bee wagons I have seen in eastern
> europe. These were using horizontal hives of about half frame depth. So it
> is a proven design, just with a robot doing the job on the inside rather
> than the beekeeper.
>
> After seeing these almost 20 years ago my thoughts were that it could be
> easily scaled to a shipping container for fast apiary deployment. But
> asking anyone in Ag to retool is a loosing game and that was before
> pollination became such an essential part of things. Yet
> this is where I think the tech is aimed. The Israelis are one of the
> biggest protected cropping markets in the world and a "no worries" portable
> option like this would be attractive for greenhouse businesses needing
> pollination services rather than paying someone to do it manually. It will
> probably be hideously expensive, but not when scaled to a large protected
> cropping operation. The Israelis are some of the most innovative farmers in
> the world and I don't see much come out of there that is not well thought
> out and designed.
>
> I remain skeptical in regard to the flowhive for my situation. But my
> father
> is keeping bees again after a 20 year break thanks to this technology and
> it is working really well for him. He lives in the tropics where the honey
> flows like water and doesn't candy inside a week...
>
> Karl
> Canberra, Australia
>

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