Nectar

09/24/2025

🚨New Nectar Podcast Episode: The #1 Insight Every Beekeeper Needs in 2025

What if you could see not just where your hives died… but where they went before they died?

That’s the power of Nectar’s new Yard Pass-Through Mortality Rate — a ready-made report that shows the true impact of each yard location on hive survivorship.

In this episode, Max breaks down:
🐝 The story behind Nectar’s pivot from sensors to a full digital operating system (and how that was fuelled by understanding the importance of yard pass-through mortality)
🐝 Why yard-level insights are a baseline for good beekeeping in 2025
🐝 How commercial beekeepers like Nick Groenhof are already using this to save money, reduce losses, and strengthen grower relationships

Available now on YouTube & Spotify 🎧

Max breaks down the ins and outs of Yard Pass-Through Mortality Rate—a new ready-made report that shows the percentage of hives that have died after passing ...

09/23/2025

🚨Calling all beekeepers heading to Apimondia🚨

Nectar will be in Copenhagen for the conference from Sept 23–27 at the Bella Center. Our CTO Nico Coallier and researcher Maxime Fraser-Franco are giving three scientific presentations. Our CEO, Marc-André Roberge will be roaming the venue to meet with beekeepers, researchers, and potential partners as we explore international expansion. We’d love to meet with you – both during the talks and afterwards, 1:1.

Join our sessions:

Sept 24 — Hall A2 — 10:00
Will my colony survive this season? A benchmark analysis of statistical and computational models to predict honey bee mortality.

Sept 26 — Auditorium 15 — 12:30
What’s the best queen? It depends! A fitness-based hybrid recommendation system for beekeepers.

Sept 27 — Hall A2 — 10:00
SHARP-FB: Short Hive Audio Recording Predictor of Frames of Bees (and more)…

We hope to see you there! If you're interesting in connecting, please reach out directly.

08/06/2025

What do you do when you find a cluster of dead hives?

5th-generation beekeeper and former Apple engineer, Jason Miller of Miller Honey Farms found himself in this exact situation while checking a yard in North Dakota.

Most would guess: no feed, no treatment, neglect. But guesses don’t help you fix the system.

Jason scanned the hives into Nectar and got answers fast: no feed in 30+ days, too long in the holding yard, and a key protocol his team had created—first in, first out—hadn’t been followed.
Now, they know. And next year, it won’t happen again.

On the latest episode of the Nectar podcast, Jason shares:
🐝 How “low-touch beekeeping” reduces unnecessary hive movement
🏢 What it takes to run a state-of-the-art indoor wintering facility
🧠 How his time at Apple shapes his systems-first approach

“There’s a big difference between I think this is what happened and I know this is what happened.” That's a quote from Jason Miller on the importance of maki...

07/31/2025

What does it take to scale a beekeeping operation beyond 20,000 hives—and launch an entirely new revenue stream along the way?

For Mike deJong, owner of Busy Bee Farm in Alberta, the answer was data. When he first started using Nectar, Mike wanted to know:
– How are my queens performing?
– Are my guys working efficiently?
– Is my treatment plan actually improving bee health?

Today, he’s one of Canada’s largest pollinators—he’s expanded his footprint to Saskatchewan, and has added a whole new revenue stream through nuc production. We visited Mike during peak nuc season to capture it all on video.

Mike DeJong of Busy Bee Farms speaks about how he's used Nectar to become one of Canada’s largest pollinators, while streamlining his queen procurement proce...

07/22/2025

Today, we’re thrilled to be sharing a new episode of the Nectar podcast with Glenn Card and an in-depth case study on how the Card brothers use Nectar to run their 30,000+ hive operation. Listen or read to learn:

🐝 How the Cards shipped 8,000 nucs in under 7 weeks—with real-time brood data
📍 How they analyze pass-through mortality across 200+ yards to refine pollination contracts
📦 How they predict nuc supply 7+ days out, based on live data from the field
⚠️ How they identify underperforming hives early—before wasting time and resources
👷‍♂️ How they manage 12+ crews and hundreds of pollination contracts with real-time crew

The Card brothers run one of the most ambitious operations in beekeeping and we’re genuinely honored to share their story. Links to the podcast & case study below.

Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGiaTJF5jZs&t=5s
Case Study: https://nectar.buzz/en/stories/30_000_hives_2_brothers_glenn_wes_card_on_data_driven_beekeeping/

This episodes guest is Glenn Card—the proprietor, with his brother Wes, of one of the largest and most respected beekeeping operations in the country. Togeth...