Mississauga, ON Canada and Sacramento, CA USA
March 31, 2021
Vectorhive honeybee dispensers on a sunflower field
Bee Vectoring Technologies International Inc. (the “Company” or “BVT”) (CSE: BEE) (OTCQB: BEVVF) (CVE:BEE) is pleased to announce the Company has been granted a US patent for the latest version of its honeybee hive dispenser system. The new system is computer-controlled and enables metered, uniform delivery of plant protection products to crops using commercial honeybees. This is the first patent on its honeybee dispenser system, and represents the first patent in a fifth overall area of technology of the Company.
“Our patented system can be efficiently added on to commercial honeybee hives, for growers to get the added value of disease control on top of pollinating their crops,” said Ashish Malik, CEO of Bee Vectoring Technologies. “This new computer-controlled version makes crop protection delivery even more effective and consistent.”
The system is part of BVT’s growth strategy to service 2.88 million(1) commercial bee hives in the US and 91 million(2) worldwide. Leveraging both honeybee and bumblebee systems extends the Company’s reach to 100% of the bee vectoring market opportunity for flowering crops, including high volume crops such as almonds, sunflowers and apples, and high value crops such as blueberries, melons, strawberries and raspberries.
BVT’s bumblebee system, the Company’s initial product offering, is being successfully adopted by growers east of the Rockies. In the western US, however, commercial bumblebees are not used for pollination or bee vectoring. The honeybee system is therefore critical to BVT’s growth in those areas, especially in the berry-dense Pacific Northwest and in California – the single largest agriculture market in the US, where BVT was recently granted regulatory approval. In California, there are 1.3 million acres of key crops for the Company to target and 1.1 million3 of them are already using commercial honeybees for pollination.
“The patented honeybee system maximizes our market opportunity,” said Ian Collinson, Sales Manager at Bee Vectoring Technologies. “It has been in use with growers commercially since early 2020 in key US blueberry and caneberry regions including the Southeast, Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Northwest. It’s also being used in California demonstration trials on almond and berry crops. We even have grower customers who use the honeybee and bumblebee systems together to maximize pollination and disease management.”
Conventional growing relies heavily on chemical-based pesticides prone to non-targeted exposures and high waste. Usually applied through spraying, they use copious amounts of water, and rely on disease risk monitoring to properly time applications. And application equipment is expensive. BVT’s bee vectoring system gets nature to do the work instead: honeybees deliver biological control agents daily during the bloom period, using existing pollination practices that require minimal management. Powered by solar energy and using a waterless bee vectoring application, the technology drastically decreases the amount of wasted product and saves thousands of gallons of water used in sprays.
As bees leave their hive to forage, they walk through the dispenser, pick up trace amounts of product, then carry it directly into blooms. The system is programmed to ensure the right amount of product is released at the right time, preventing waste and maximizing effectiveness.
“Sustainable agriculture practices are becoming increasingly critical to help feed the world’s growing population. Our cost-effective, highly-targeted delivery systems are enabling increased adoption of the new biological compounds currently being developed to replace more chemicals,” added Mr. Collinson. “With our systems, bees deliver product right to the blooms, where it does the most good. This enables growers to reduce chemical use and increase output per acre through yield increase and disease prevention.”
BVT continues to pursue an aggressive IP strategy, with over 65 patents granted worldwide and over 35 pending. Consisting of six patent families, the patents cover North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
“Secured patents safeguard our competitive advantage,” said Mr. Malik. “Since most companies prefer to work with proprietary and patent-protected technologies, patents also allow us to develop vital partnerships with companies interested in introducing our system to growers worldwide, scaling our operations quickly and efficiently.”
The Company also advises that Brandon Boddy has resigned from the Board of Directors effective April 1, 2021. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Boddy for his contributions to BVT and wishes him well with his future endeavors.
(1) Source: USDA, 2020 “Honey Bee Colonies”
(2) Source: FAO, United Nations, 2017 Statistics
(3) Source: USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service
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