The Importance of Innovation in Beekeeping and Livestock

Rethinking Beekeeping: Bees Are Livestock, and Innovation Matters

When most people hear the word livestock, they think of cows, goats, or chickens, but not everyone realizes that honey bees are also formally classified as livestock under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Like other managed animals, honey bees directly support agriculture and food production, from pollinating crops to producing valuable hive products like honey and wax.

Understanding bees as livestock isn't just a technicality, it's a mindset shift that emphasizes the responsibility we have as stewards of their health, welfare, and future.

The Role of Innovation in Livestock Stewardship

In traditional livestock industries, innovation has been key to improving animal welfare and productivity. Cattle farmers, for example, use cow mattresses to relieve joint strain, misting systems to cool animals during heat waves, and customized nutrition plans to optimize health. Poultry farmers have adopted ventilation systems, precision feeding, and habitat enrichment to better meet the needs of their flocks.

Each of these advancements actually serves a triple purpose and benefit: they enhance the quality of life for the animals, which in turn improves and/or increases their production, which then results in more profitability of the farming operations. Innovations that create better environments for our livestock not only improves their quality of life, but yours too. It's a really beautiful circular process of giving more, getting more, rinse and repeat.

Many of us who work with bees already view beekeeping that way, so we just wanted to gather and share our own thoughts here on our blog. This reciprocal mindset has so much to do with how we run our business and what motivates our desire to continue into the engineering space.

Symbiotic Mutualism: The Beekeeper–Bee Partnership

In dairy farming, cows depend almost entirely on human care, categorizing their relationship as symbiotic interdependence. Bees, by contrast, are more independent; wild bees can certainly exist without human intervention. Yet in today's world, honey bees face unprecedented challenges: pesticide exposure, habitat fragmentation, poor forage diversity, climate stress, and the relentless pressure of varroa mites and other pests. That's why when bees are in the care of a beekeeper, the relationship could be better described as symbiotic mutualism.

An attentive beekeeper can dramatically tip the scales in favor of the bees. When managed responsibly, a beekeeper strengthens the colony's chances of survival and success, just as any other livestock farmer. So the relationship is not fully interdependent, but undoubtedly mutually beneficial.

Innovation in Beekeeping: A Brief History of Progress

Fortunately, innovation in beekeeping has been alive and well for centuries. Pioneers in the field have developed solutions that support hive health, improve management efficiency, and adapt to changing environmental pressures.

A few standout innovations include:

• • 1851 – United States – Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth invents the movable-frame hive, establishing the principle of “bee space” and enabling hive inspections without destroying comb.

  • 1873 – Austria – Franz Hruschka introduces the centrifugal honey extractor, allowing beekeepers to harvest honey while preserving the wax comb for reuse.

  • 1920s–30s – United States – A.I. Root Company standardizes commercial production of hive tools and smokers, fueling the expansion of modern beekeeping.

  • 1957 – France – Brother Adam (of Buckfast Abbey) finalizes the Buckfast bee, a hybrid strain bred for disease resistance, gentleness, and productivity.

  • 2005 – France – Veto-pharma introduces Apivar and later Varroa EasyCheck, providing science-backed tools for safe, effective varroa mite treatment and monitoring.

  • 2009 – Turkey – Apimaye launches its line of thermo-insulated modular hives, designed to protect bees from extreme climates and reduce colony stress through ventilation, pest control trays, and UV-resistant materials.

  • 2015 – United States – Broodminder LLC develops smart hive sensors, giving beekeepers access to internal hive temperature, humidity, and weight via Bluetooth and cloud-connected devices.

  • 2017 – Hungary – János Fenyősy develops the InstantVap, the first cordless, battery-powered oxalic acid vaporizer, now imported exclusively to the U.S. by Lorob Bees. The tool enables fast, efficient mite treatment with minimal disruption to the hive.

  • 2021 – United States – EZ-OX becomes one of the first EPA-certified oxalic acid products available to U.S. beekeepers, ensuring legal, high-purity varroa treatment with verified safety and consistency.

  • 2025 – United States – Lorob Bees launches ReadyComb, a groundbreaking service that transforms a beekeeper’s own refined wax into fully drawn comb, reducing the energy load on bees and accelerating honey production.
    (Yes, we are totally shamelessly including ourselves in this list- because we truly believe in this development!) 😉

Each of these breakthroughs shares a common goal: making life better for bees, easier for beekeepers, and more productive for the hive.

Lorob Bees and the Future of Beekeeping

At Lorob Bees, we’re committed to doing our part in making beekeeping more accessible, more efficient, and more productive, not just for the beekeeper, but for the bees. Whether it’s helping people simplify varroa treatment with the InstantVap products, ensuring purity with EZ-OX OA, helping bees conserve energy and build faster through ReadyComb, and other products we are working on, everything we develop is rooted in a desire to improve the beekeeping experience from the bees to the beekeeper.

We believe the future of beekeeping will be shaped by innovation- by tools and practices that make it easier to care for bees, harder for pests to thrive, and faster for colonies to grow strong and produce honey.

When we invest in better ideas, we aren’t just improving outcomes for today’s beekeepers, we’re helping secure a healthier, more resilient future for one of the planet’s most vital species.