The Honeybee iOS app is in beta testing and is currently invite only. For those users who did receive access, it came in the form of an invitation to Test Flight. The app will be available in the App Store in the coming weeks, after we finish beta testing.

You can still use the Honeybee eSIM by installing it on your phone. By doing this, you will be able to validate coverage and earn credits for doing so. Unfortunately, you will not be able to "drop Pollen" without the app—and right now the app is only available for iOS. We are targeting an Android rollout in the near future.

Yes. The Honeybee eSIM will automatically attach to nearby Flowers to validate the network. This happens in the background without you having to take any action.

The difference between a Honeybee with no app and a Honeybee app is the ability to drop Pollen. With the Honeybee iOS app, you can drop Pollen everywhere where that you go to incentivize Flowers to grow in those places. In the near future, Flowers that provide continuous coverage (30 days) to those areas where Pollen has been dropped can be rewarded with the bounty of the drops. 

The Honeybee app introduces a new concept to the Pollen ecosystem—Pollen Drops. You can drop Pollen in areas where there is no Pollen coverage to signal to the network that coverage is needed. In the near future, Flowers that provide continuous coverage (30 days) to those areas where Pollen has been dropped will be rewarded with the bounty of the drops. 

Honeybee eSIMs that are paired with the Honeybee iOS app will also ‘Pollen Drop’ in every Hex visited, with each drop earning the Honeybees 0.1 PIC (up to 10 PICs per day). These Pollen Drops will accumulate over time (for a maximum 180 day rolling period) as an additional rewards bonus for Flowers that provide coverage in the same Hex for more than 30 days.

Yes, it's possible to do this if your device supports multiple eSIMs. To switch between which eSIM you are using, go to the settings and toggle on / off the appropriate eSIM. 

If you are using the Honeybee iOS app with the Hummingbird eSIM, the rewards will only go to the owner of the Honeybee NFT. 

No. Honeybee SIMs validate the Pollen Mobile network, similar to Bumblebees, and as such they upload logging data such as GPS and details on Flower attaches. When paired with the Honeybee mobile app, Honeybees will also upload things like phone version, carrier, and operating system. 

Honeybees earn 1 Pollen Incentive Credit (PIC) per unique Flower attach per day. So if your phone attaches to 5 unique Flowers on Monday, on Tuesday you will have received 5 PICs.  

Pollen operates on Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), which is also known as LTE band 48. It is available only in the US, and requires a device that supports band 48. See here for a list of band 48 supported devices.

The Hummingbird allows you to connect to and use the Pollen Mobile network from your phone privately. For connecting, you will earn 1 Pollen Incentive Credit (PIC) per day. By contrast, the Honeybee allows you to connect to the Pollen network from your phone, but it also validates the network and thus is not private as you will be uploading logs. Honeybees earn 1 PIC per day per unique Flower.  

There are some known restrictions on installing an eSIM, the main one being that if you have a carrier locked phone you won't be able to use it. A carrier locked phone is one that was given to you by the carrier (e.g. Verizon) and it came pre-loaded with the SIM.

The job of the Bumblebee is to ping Flowers and validate the network coverage, so the best way to use your Bumblebee is to put in your car, bicycle, drone, or some other moving device and go for a tour of your surrounding area. 

We’ve been testing with a few different powerbanks and have good success with this one from Anker. 

Bumblebees report data back to the Pollen network to help us build a reliable map of coverage information. Data reported by Bumblebees includes date / time, GPS location, and network traffic statistics (e.g., ping times, upload / download speeds, signal strength) in addition to their own unique identifier and the unique identifiers of Flowers for which coverage is verified. 

It can take up to one minute to attach to a Pollen tower. This means that it's possible for you to drive by a tower and not attach to it. When the network becomes more dense, you will stay more connected as there will be handoffs from one tower to the next. 

When you have a red GPS light, this means that your Bumblebee has a GPS fix but has not synchronized its system clock to the GPS clock yet. You can wait 5 minutes, or reboot your Bumblebee to start the process over again. We're working on improvements to make this much faster.

Bumblebees are external hardware devices that validate the Pollen network. Honeybees are SIM based and must be installed on a band 48 compatible mobile device, and they can also be used to validate the Pollen network.