Bee Vectoring Technologies Granted New Patent for Computer-Controlled Honeybee Hive Dispenser System

Mississauga, Ontario and Sacramento, California–(Newsfile Corp. – March 31, 2021) – Bee Vectoring Technologies International Inc. (CSE: BEE) (OTCQB: BEVVF) (CVE: BEE) (the “Company” or “BVT”) is pleased to announce the Company has been granted a US patent for the latest version of its honeybee hive dispenser system. The new system is computer-controlled and enables metered, uniform delivery of plant protection products to crops using commercial honeybees. This is the first patent on its honeybee dispenser system, and represents the first patent in a fifth overall area of technology of the Company.

“Our patented system can be efficiently added on to commercial honeybee hives, for growers to get the added value of disease control on top of pollinating their crops,” said Ashish Malik, CEO of Bee Vectoring Technologies. “This new computer-controlled version makes crop protection delivery even more effective and consistent.”

The system is part of BVT’s growth strategy to service 2.88 million⁽¹⁾ commercial bee hives in the US and 91 million⁽²⁾ worldwide. Leveraging both honeybee and bumblebee systems extends the Company’s reach to 100% of the bee vectoring market opportunity for flowering crops, including high volume crops such as almonds, sunflowers and apples, and high value crops such as blueberries, melons, strawberries and raspberries.

BVT’s bumblebee system, the Company’s initial product offering, is being successfully adopted by growers east of the Rockies. In the western US, however, commercial bumblebees are not used for pollination or bee vectoring. The honeybee system is therefore critical to BVT’s growth in those areas, especially in the berry-dense Pacific Northwest and in California – the single largest agriculture market in the US, where BVT was recently granted regulatory approval. In California, there are 1.3 million acres of key crops for the Company to target and 1.1 million⁽³⁾ of them are already using commercial honeybees for pollination.

“The patented honeybee system maximizes our market opportunity,” said Ian Collinson, Sales Manager at Bee Vectoring Technologies. “It has been in use with growers commercially since early 2020 in key US blueberry and caneberry regions including the Southeast, Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Northwest. It’s also being used in California demonstration trials on almond and berry crops. We even have grower customers who use the honeybee and bumblebee systems together to maximize pollination and disease management.”

BVT Vectorhive honeybee dispensers on a sunflower field

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
http://gigya.internet.itbusinessnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/79024_a6b4ac12b4dd0af9_002full.jpg 

BVT Vectorhive honeybee dispensers on a blueberry field

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
http://gigya.internet.itbusinessnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/79024_a6b4ac12b4dd0af9_003full.jpg 

BVT Vectorhive honeybee dispensers on a strawberry field

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
http://gigya.internet.itbusinessnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/79024_a6b4ac12b4dd0af9_004full.jpg

Top to bottom: Vectorhive honeybee dispensers on a sunflower field, blueberry field and strawberry field.

Conventional growing relies heavily on chemical-based pesticides prone to non-targeted exposures and high waste. Usually applied through spraying, they use copious amounts of water, and rely on disease risk monitoring to properly time applications. And application equipment is expensive. BVT’s bee vectoring system gets nature to do the work instead: honeybees deliver biological control agents daily during the bloom period, using existing pollination practices that require minimal management. Powered by solar energy and using a waterless bee vectoring application, the technology drastically decreases the amount of wasted product and saves thousands of gallons of water used in sprays.

As bees leave their hive to forage, they walk through the dispenser, pick up trace amounts of product, then carry it directly into blooms. The system is programmed to ensure the right amount of product is released at the right time, preventing waste and maximizing effectiveness.

“Sustainable agriculture practices are becoming increasingly critical to help feed the world’s growing population. Our cost-effective, highly-targeted delivery systems are enabling increased adoption of the new biological compounds currently being developed to replace more chemicals,” added Mr. Collinson. “With our systems, bees deliver product right to the blooms, where it does the most good. This enables growers to reduce chemical use and increase output per acre through yield increase and disease prevention.”

BVT continues to pursue an aggressive IP strategy, with over 65 patents granted worldwide and over 35 pending. Consisting of six patent families, the patents cover North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

“Secured patents safeguard our competitive advantage,” said Mr. Malik. “Since most companies prefer to work with proprietary and patent-protected technologies, patents also allow us to develop vital partnerships with companies interested in introducing our system to growers worldwide, scaling our operations quickly and efficiently.”

The Company also advises that Brandon Boddy has resigned from the Board of Directors effective April 1, 2021. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Boddy for his contributions to BVT and wishes him well with his future endeavors.

About Bee Vectoring Technologies International Inc.

BVT, an agriculture technology company, is a market disruptor with a significant global market opportunity in the $240 billion crop protection and fertilizer market. BVT has pioneered a natural precision agriculture system that replaces chemical pesticides and wasteful plant protection product spray applications by delivering biological pesticide alternatives to crops using commercially grown bees. BVT’s award-winning technology, precision vectoring, is completely harmless to bees and allows minute amounts of naturally-derived pesticides (called biologicals) to be delivered directly to blooms, providing improved crop protection and yield results than traditional chemical pesticides – and improving the health of the soil, the microbiome and the environment. Currently, BVT has over 65 granted patents, over 35 patents pending in all major agricultural countries worldwide, and has US EPA registration of its Vectorite™ with CR-7 (EPA Registration No. 90641-2) for sale as a registered biological fungicide for use on the labeled crops.

Additional information can be viewed at the Company’s website www.beevt.com. To receive regular news updates from the Company, subscribe at www.beevt.com/newsletter.

Company Contact:
Ashish Malik, President & CEO
info@beevt.com

Investor Contact:
Babak Pedram, Investor Relations
Virtus Advisory Group
Tel: 416-995-8651
bpedram@virtusadvisory.com

The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Certain statements contained in this press release constitute “forward-looking information” as such term is defined in applicable Canadian securities legislation. The words “may”, “would”, “could”, “should”, “potential”, “will”, “seek”, “intend”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect” and similar expressions as they relate to the Company, “annual revenue potential”, are intended to identify forward-looking information. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking information. Such statements reflect the Company’s current views and intentions with respect to future events, and current information available to the Company, and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including: planted acres, selling price of competitive chemical pesticides and the US to Canadian dollar exchange rate. Material factors or assumptions were applied in providing forward-looking information. Many factors could cause the actual results, performance or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking information to vary from those described herein should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize. These factors include changes in law, competition, litigation, the ability to implement business strategies and pursue business opportunities, state of the capital markets, the availability of funds and resources to pursue operations, new technologies, the ability to protect intellectual property rights, the ability to obtain patent protection for products, third-party intellectual property infringement claims, regulatory changes affecting products, failing research and development activities, the ability to reach and sustain profitability, dependence on business and technical experts, the ability to effectively manage business operations and growth, issuance of debt, dilution of existing securities, volatility of publicly traded securities, potential conflicts of interest, unlikelihood of dividend payments, the potential costs stemming from defending third-party intellectual property infringement claims, the ability to secure relationships with manufacturers and purchasers, as well as general economic, market and business conditions, as well as those risk factors discussed or referred to in the Company’s Filing Statement dated August 14,2020, filed with the CSE and securities regulatory authorities in certain provinces of Canada and available at www.sedar.com. Should any factor affect the Company in an unexpected manner, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information prove incorrect, the actual results or events may differ materially from the results or events predicted. Any such forward-looking information is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. Moreover, the Company does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of such forward-looking information. The forward-looking information included in this press release is made as of the date of this press release and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable law. All figures are in Canadian dollars.

⁽¹⁾ Source: USDA, 2020 “Honey Bee Colonies”
⁽²⁾ Source: FAO, United Nations, 2017 Statistics
⁽³⁾ Source: USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service

###

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/79024