"Alternatively, crop growers can buy their own hives and set them up permanently, eliminating the cost of rental and reducing the pressure on honeybees used for pollination services. However, this comes at its own cost. Growers need to maintain the beehives themselves or hire a beekeeper to do it."
It seems like this robot may be aimed at farmers who want their own hives for pollination purposes, but also don't want the burden of looking after them?
> Beekeepers also make money by renting out hives for pollination?
The sad things of those practices is that the hive is stressed by being moved around a lot, and that hives are often used to impollinate but after pesticides have been used thius killing the hive.
Maybe. The cost of this machine seems to still make contracting more feasible.
If it's a big monocrop place, then it probably still makes sense to contract pollination because you only need it for a short period during the year. You likely couldn't harvest any or much honey in the large monocrop fields because they would need that honey to support themselves the rest of the year when the monocrop is not flowering (or you'd heavily feed them).
Smaller places, like local orchards, could maybe benefit, but only if they're willing/able to process and sell their own honey. Many small places can currently partner with beekeepers for little to no money. In some cases, beekeepers will even pay the orchard owners (usually in honey) for being able to place the hives there. So maybe the orchard could make a little extra profit. But it seems this machine costs money on a yearly basis. This could create a huge liability if you have a bad year.
Whats more: big monocrop areas cannot sustain bees naturally. So they would die or become very unhealthy very fast.
Bees need consistent food supply for the entire season. Which is why contractors travel around. When they leave the plum-orchards, they travel to the next place where they are needed and bees can have food.
This is also the reason why "bees are dying". Apis Mellifara - the honeybee - isn't dying, we take good care of that. But many of the other insects are. Because monoculture cannot provide them food.
Farmers used to specially source areas of their land for this long ago. A plum-orchard would have at least 10% of land with flowers, brambles, etc. To keep a healthy, natural population of pollinators around.
Yes, my dad took the idea of a "tithe" and set aside 10% of the yard as "wild". Never touched it. I went into it a few times, but it always felt like a type of trespassing.
Wish this was more of a common practice, though I know the (short-term) economic incentives are against it.
More farmers are doing this. In The Netherlands, where I'm from, there are EU subsidies to help farmers cover these costs.
And all farmers I know gladly use this. They feel "forced" to go for highest, short-term economic incentives and forego all the 40+ year planning that farmers used to do. But they all know this long-term planning very well, because it's what their parents did in order to pass down the farms to the current generation. Many farmers know that what they do is bad in the long term, but cannot afford to turn around.
There obviously will always be farmers who then pocket the money and sow the cheapest stuff that checks all boxes for the subsidies. But many farmers feel releived that they are asked and rewarded to care for our communal nature.
Edit: Found an interesting article:
https://theconversation.com/the-farmer-wants-a-hive-inside-t...
To quote:
"Alternatively, crop growers can buy their own hives and set them up permanently, eliminating the cost of rental and reducing the pressure on honeybees used for pollination services. However, this comes at its own cost. Growers need to maintain the beehives themselves or hire a beekeeper to do it."
It seems like this robot may be aimed at farmers who want their own hives for pollination purposes, but also don't want the burden of looking after them?