AUDIO: Gene Robinson & Adam Hamilton – ForgeBee
The founder of ForgeBee says lab-grown honeybees may be a key to the future of food production.
Gene Robinson, who’s also a professor at the University of Illinois, says colony collapse and other factors continue to contribute to the decline in wild honeybee populations.
“One-third of our nation’s food supply depends on honeybees.” He says, “Their value to our economy is over $15 billion per year. We’re really concentrating on food security for our country.”
ForgeBee CEO Adam Hamilton tells Brownfield that the company is utilizing AI and robotics to grow units of disposable bees.
“Which will be shipped out to beekeepers and growers.” He says, “Their behavior will be manipulated using a combination of chemicals that essentially push the bees to forage more regularly.”
Robinson says that drive to forage means the units will have a two-to-three-week lifespan devoted to pollinating crops.
“If they’re exposed to pesticides and pathogens in the field, it doesn’t matter.” He says, “They’re going to perform their pollination duties, and die, and not bring it back to larger beehives.”
Both say field testing is expected to begin in 2027.
ForgeBee was recently honored with the Edwin Moore Family Agriculture Award by the University of Illinois. Edwin G. Moore says the award honors his grandfather’s spirit of innovation that he demonstrated on his northern Illinois farm.
“Edwin E. Moore, Edwin Eldred Moore, who was a graduate from the University of Illinois and the College of Agriculture in 1924.” He says, “He brought back many of the innovative practices that he had learned, which back then was things like tractors and automated machinery to make things easier, more efficient. And he was able to introduce new innovative practices to the farm. And throughout his career, he did that.”
Moore tells Brownfield that ForgeBee continues a 10-year tradition of recognizing companies on the cutting edge of agriculture.
“This is solving such an important problem.” He says, “Bees play such an important part of all that we do. It’s important that we figure out a way to facilitate the continued production of bees. And I’m so pleased that ForgeBee got this award, well deserved, and I’m sure they’ll do great things as a result.”
Robinson says the $5,000 award and continued support in the U of I Research Park will go far toward bringing ForgeBee closer to widespread use.
“The business world is very different than the academic world, and we need trusted advisors and a strong infrastructure to be able to take the ideas that come out of the academic laboratory and ground them in business reality so that we have a chance to succeed and have a commercial impact,” he says.
Brownfield spoke with all three at the 2026 U of I Ag Tech Summit in Champaign.
