Thinking outside the box to promote bee health and food security.

ForgeBee is developing and scaling automated solutions to revolutionize pollination.

About ForgeBee

Automated and sustainable solutions for superior bee production, distribution, and pollination.

The Challenge

Bees contribute to roughly one-third of our food supply. We all need bees for our food, but we live in a world that is increasingly hostile to their survival. Bee populations have declined steadily over 30+ years. Bee hive losses reached a record 60% in 2024 and 2025, increasing costs and risks to growers, beekeepers and food-security.

Additionally, pollination is migratory. About 1.6 million hives travel thousands of miles each year to pollinate crops, a costly and labor intensive process that increases hive stress and spreads the diseases causing bee decline.

The Opportunity

Bees contribute hundreds of billions of dollars to the global food supply, and pollination-limited crops can see up to 30% yield gains when pollination is sufficient.

ForgeBee is building a brand new approach to beekeeping and pollination. Our technology protects bees from the factors causing population collapse and makes healthy bees available on-demand whenever and wherever they're needed.

By producing bees at scale, our technology ensures beekeepers will be able to maximize the pollination of their clients' crops.

News & Milestones

Building momentum

Federal Validation

$4.5M DARPA + SBIR Phase I

Federal funding demonstrates the strategic need for automated pollination and enabled early platform development.

Commercial Traction

~$50K QMC Sales + Development Agreement

Early QMC sales in government/academic channels and an R&D agreement with a major agritech company support commercialization momentum.

Community Recognition

Techstars + agriculture awards

ForgeBee is participating in Techstars Chicago and received the 2026 Edwin Moore Family Agriculture Award. We're preparing USDA-backed field trials for summer 2026.

Technology

Together, our product offerings will form an end-to-end beekeeping and pollination platform.

Pillar 1

Queen Monitoring Chamber (QMC)

AI-driven queen monitoring and automated husbandry in controlled lab environments, with a proprietary 264-well plate that mimics natural honeycomb.

The QMC keeps the queen safe from disease and pesticides, allowing her to focus on what she does best: ensuring the continuation of her species.

Patent awarded: 11,412,715 B2. Featured in 12 peer-reviewed publications and used by multiple research groups.

Pillar 2

Automated Bee Factory (ABF)

Robotic rearing that produces bees at scale, free from key environmental contaminants (diseases, parasites, pesticides).

Built for on-demand, non-seasonal production with full developmental-stage control.

The ABF for the first time gives beekeepers and growers year-round access to bees, whenever and wherever they're needed.

Patent pending.

Pillar 3

Deployable Pollination Unit (DPU)

A logistical revolution in pollination. With the DPU, beekeepers no longer have to transport their precious hives across the continent. Instead, only the bees responsible for pollination are shipped. The queen and her retinue remain safe and sound at home, ensuring their health and providing substantial cost savings for the beekeeper.

The DPU is designed for efficient field deployment and optimized to improve pollination performance up to 4x over traditional hives, so that beekeepers and growers get more bang for their bee.

Founding Team

ForgeBee is led by experienced bee scientists with deep research and commercialization alignment.

Adam Hamilton, PhD

Co-Founder & CEO

15 years researching bees and leading technology development at UIUC.

Drives commercialization, field-trial execution, and go-to-market strategy across growers, beekeepers, and partners.

Gene Robinson, PhD

Co-Founder & CTO

Over 40 years researching bees. Member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine.

Awarded the 2018 Wolf Prize in Agriculture and co-led the scientific foundation behind ForgeBee’s technology stack.