Integrated Pest Management is defined by the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) as: “a pest population management system that utilizes all suitable techniques in a compatible manner to reduce pest populations and maintain them at levels below those causing economic injury”.
The major incentives that led to the widespread recognition of IPM as a key plant protection tool during the last decades were: environmental pollution by agro-chemicals, resistance to pesticides by a whole multitude of pests, outbreaks of secondary pests as a result of using non-selective pesticides and disruption of pest-resistance mechanisms in plants.

Bio-Bee is at the forefront of implementing biologically-based IPM techniques in protected and open-field cultivations. Advice cards have been developed for integration of Bio-Bee’s natural enemies with selective chemical pesticides under strict pest monitoring programs. These protocols are being used in conventional as well as bio-organic sweet pepper greenhouses, open-field strawberry, and protected bio-organic cucumber, and tomato. During the 2004/2005 season, IPM/biocontrol is being applied in Israel on 300 ha. of strawberry and 300 ha. of greenhouse sweet pepper.

IPM is strongly linked to the particular agricultural crop, its economical aspects, ecology and genetics of its different pests and their control. The most common methods used in IPM are:
1) Chemical control - aiming at selective pesticides that will affect the target pests and whilst inflicting minimum negative side effects on the environment and/or non-target organisms.
2) Resistant plants - to specific pests.
3) Cultural control -that utilizes cultural methods used in a given crop to minimize pest populations and maximize populations of beneficial organisms. Typical examples of cultural control are: crop rotation, cultivation methods, surface mulching, solarization, sanitation between production cycles, trap plants for different pests, and refuge or banker plants for the beneficials.
4) Control of pests - by interfering with their physiological or behavioral functions. Sex pheromones are used for monitoring, mass trapping and male disruption of plant pests. Pesticides, such as Insect Growth Regulators (IGRs), affect the normal development and metamorphosis of pests. Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is another measure to control pests via their reproduction system.
5) Biological control - utilizes living organisms to control agricultural pests. Biological control by beneficial arthropods, i.e. predatory and parasitic insects and mites is Bio-Bee’s specialty. Hence Bio-Bee’s mission is to place biological control as a key component in any relevant IPM program.