Bee Friends is run by BeeWise, a youth social venture founded by three high school students. It started with a simple question: how can technology help heal our planet? For us, the answer began with honeybees.
We studied why honeybee colonies around the world are shrinking, and met with Korean beekeepers and environmental groups. Again and again we heard about one pest: the Varroa mite.
We started testing whether a phone camera and image recognition could spot mites on bees.
With AI mentors and student developers, we built BeeCure, an app that finds Varroa mites in hive photos and alerts beekeepers.
We presented it at the COP29 youth environment session in Baku, Azerbaijan.
We formally started BeeWise as a youth social venture joining technology, ecology and education. Our goal is what we call ecological intelligence: learning to live alongside nature with care and curiosity.
We believe caring for nature starts with empathy in early childhood. Bee Friends helps children see bees as living beings to protect, not something to fear.
We designed three classes that combine storytelling, seedball-making for bee-friendly flowers, and art from recycled materials. The Korea Beekeepers Association and the Korean Youth Beekeepers Association reviewed the content and gave feedback from the field.
We taught the program in more than 25 kindergartens across Suwon, reaching over 200 children with hands-on workshops. We also launched an online learning app and sent 800 seedball kits home with families.
We started a youth bee-conservation partnership with Frosch and are building a network of young people across Asia and the United States. This website is part of that work: it brings the Bee Friends classes online so any classroom can use them, with a dashboard so teachers can see what students learn.
Co-founder · Environmental humanities and data
Phillips Academy Andover
Grace turns environmental data into stories that help people understand and care. She keeps BeeWise's work both scientifically careful and kind.
Co-founder · Environmental arts and technology
Phillips Academy Andover
Sophia leads design and technology, from the mite-spotting app to the creative tools that help young students learn about bees.
Co-founder · Environmental technology and justice
Seoul International School
Edward researches the local flowering plants pollinators depend on, and how communities can protect them.
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