Globally, honeybees are on brink of extinction. Especially in Korea, about 7.8 billion honeybees disappeared last year alone. The biggest cause is the climate crisis. Honeybees, which are sensitive to temperature change, were not able to adapt to drastically changing climates. More importantly, the previous beehive design that has not changed over the 5000-year of beekeeping history was not able to protect the honeybees from drastically changing climate. We thought: if the climate has changed, the beehives must evolve as well. Thus, we redesigned the standard beehive completely with the world’s most bee-friendly beehive, the optimized beehive best fit to protect the honeybees from climate crisis.

The Solar Beehive is a smart beehive optimized to protect honeybees from abnormal climates. Its specialty is the “bee-friendly design”. From the hatch size for bees, depth of the feed container, position of the humidity controller, and the exterior design, everything was designed to be “bee-friendly” so that bees can thrive in the best environment.

Four smart devices (Water & Food Supply / Temperature & Humidity Contol / CO2 Concentration Control / Hornet Intrusion Detection & Blocking) were installed in the Solar Beehive to provide the best environment for the bees. Also, all electricity for these was powered by the solar panels and does not emit any carbon.

The Solar Beehive was created with the support of Hanwha, the world’s leading solar panel manufacturer. Every year, Hanwha has contributed to the Earth’s environment with solar energy campaigns, and as part of that endeavor supported the Solar Beehive campaign.

When preparing for this campaign, Korea suffered a severe honeybee extinction problem (as of 2022, about 7.8 billion bees died), causing a major social issue. Our bold strategy started here. Hanwha, which was unrelated to honeybees, used solar panels to create a beehive that saves bees, making headlines while also raising brand awareness and familiarity as a sustainable brand.

What’s most important about this strategy is ‘authenticity’. We didn’t want this campaign to be just another example of greenwashing. We collaborated with the Korea National University of Agriculture and Fisheries and after 6 months of development process manufactured the beehive that provides optimal habitat for the honeybees regardless of the exterior climate. For sustainable operation, we donated the Solar Beehive to the university studies honeybees. A scholarly paper also proved its effectiveness. All the process was revealed on SNS and received public support.

The purpose was to give bees the optimal environment regardless of climate. We studied bee habits by interviewing experts, and then selected vital factors (temperature, humidity, food) to select automatic control features.

For optimal environment, the Solar Beehive has temperature & humidity control and a ventilation system. To prevent the invasion of hornet, which overpopulated due to global warming, the entrance is blocked when hornet frequency is detected. All devices were installed to not interfere with honeybee behavior and feed container was made to be 0.5cm deep to accommodate bee size.

To observe changes in population, a sensor was installed to count the honeybee movement at the entrance.

-6 months in feature selection, development, and production. (Production period: 2021 December-2022 May)

-6 months in exterior design and manufacture. (Design period: 2021 December-2022 February, Production period: 2022 March-May)

-The beehive was launched May 20, 2022 and operational to this day.

- The Solar Beehive proved its effectiveness in honeybee conservation. Starting with government agency, the Rural Development Administration which overlooks national apiary industry, beekeepers use this nationwide to prevent honeybee extinction.

- This was donated to the Korea National University of Agriculture and Fisheries for Industrial Entomology major department so that future beekeepers can research smart apiary practices and honeybee conservation.

- The Solar Beehive was presented at the world’s largest agricultural exhibition, ‘2022 Fieldays’, and the ‘2023 WEF (Davos)' as an excellent example of biodiversity conservation.

- Documentation film of design and the production this campaign recorded 39,211,843 views, accounting for 85% of the Korean population. Remarkably, majority of viewers were millennials and Gen Zs, who are interested in environmental issues.

- 98% being positive mentions on Solar Panel and Hanwha.

- Post campaign, positive mentions about Hanwha increased 2.6 times.

Due to the climate crisis, Korea was not an exception to severe climate anomalies. At the time of the campaign ideation, the death of 7.8 billion temperature-sensitive honeybees from an abnormal climate was a critical issue. This problem is both a threat to biodiversity and an economic menace. The apiary industry accounts for 400 million USD in size, and the mass deaths of honeybees by the climate crisis would eventually lead to the collapse of beekeeping farms in Korea.