Our bees we've gotten through the club are from Georgia, and I've had the plethora of problems with those bees.
That was the beginning of an idea that would become a business opportunity for Ellie Symes and her friends at the Indiana University Beekeeping Club.
Today, we speak with Symes and Lucas Moehle, two of the three founds of The Bee Corp. They want to incorporate technology into beehives to monitor things like temperature, pesticide levels and pollen count. These data points will help them troubleshoot struggling hives. They also have a plan to adopt 500 hives from retiring beekeepers to rent out to farmers who need bees to pollinate their crops.
Symes expects to lose some of those colonies. She says that's beekeeping.
"Having hives die over the winter will not be fatal. It hasn't even been fatal for the club to not have bees, but it will tell us that something we're doing is wrong, and it will help us change and be better," she says.
More: Buzzkill: Surveys Say Bee Colonies Continue To Decline