We are excited to announce that we now offer drone services. On warm days we are experimenting with our various Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) or better known as drones, to try and track our bees movements. We are also getting some great photos and look forward to more when the honey season starts. This data will allow us to bee know our bees and to ensure their well being.

While February is an extension of the bee events that occur in January. Days and nights are still particularly cold, but there are more bursts of warm weather that will affect our little honeybees. On those warm days, which for the honeybees is above 55°, the forager bees will leave the hive looking for pollen. This is when we hope to capture them with the drones.

Did you know that in the world of honeybees, a drone is a male honey bee. Unlike the female worker bee, drones do not have stingers. They gather neither nectar nor pollen and are unable to feed without assistance from worker bees. A drone’s only role is to mate with an unfertilized queen.

Ninja Honey Bees, LLC is the first in Virginia to track their honeybees with drones. However, we are not the first in the nation. Australian technology startup Bee Innovative and the University of North Dakota (UND) are partnering to unlock an entirely new market for agricultural drones in the United States.

Be on the look out for some great photos as the weather warms and we look forward to seeing you at the farmers market in the spring.