The bee population is shrinking. But this duo is saving them.
Stuart and Cedar Anderson spent a whole ten years trying to figure out how to harvest honey without disturbing bees. Their solution was an Indiegogo-funded invention called Flow Hive that replicates a real beehive without putting the bees at risk when you harvest honey. The Flow Hive allows the honey to flow out of the hive straight into a jar without crushing or disrupting the bees inside. What a brilliant design!
Cedar, who is a third-generation beekeeper from the rural community of Nimbin, Australia, says that he was inspired to try to design a simpler beehive after his brother was stung during one of their honey extraction missions.
In 2015 Flow Hive became the most successful crowdfunding campaign in Indiegogo history collecting a total of $12.2 million! Now, four years later, the Flow Hive has helped create 51,000 new beehive colonies, resulting in a 10% increase in the world’s bee colonies. That’s impressive!
Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture said: “The rate of beginners getting into beekeeping has more than doubled in a decade.”
The Andersons have successfully shipped those 51,000 new beehives to 150 different countries.
With honeybee populations across the globe declining due to habitat loss and pesticides, the company has also decided to donate all of its profits to honeybee advocacy groups.
Cedar said:
We’re proud to have donated 100% of profits from the sale of our Flow Pollinator House to nine local grassroots pollinator projects in Australia and the United States that are at work protecting wild habitats all around the world. Pollinators need large areas of habitat to flourish—the more we can do to protect and conserve native habitats, the more opportunities these tiny environmental champions will have to do their important work.
Meanwhile, if you cant buy a Flow Hive, you can still help save the declining bee population by building a homemade bee hotel with bamboo shoots, bricks, or wood with holes drilled in them.
The Flow Hive and the newer Flow Hive 2 beehives can be purchased from the Honey Flow (click here) website.