Cedar Anderson got the idea for the Flow Hive in his 20s, after many years of beekeeping and old-fashioned honey extraction.
To extract honey from a conventional beehive, you need to remove one of the beehive frames at once, brush the beeswax, and move the frame to a device called a centrifuge, which collects honey from the beehive. From there, you filter your honey and place the frame where you found it. It is a time consuming process that requires some patience.
“I sat there one day and went, wait, there must be a better way. Can’t we have bees pulling honey straight from the hive?” Anderson told MBG in a call from his home in Australia. From there, Anderson and his father, Stuart, embarked on a decade-long process to simplify the bee extinction process.
The result is Flow Hive, which allows beekeepers to roll a handle and watch the honey flow directly; No centrifuge or disassembly required. Flow Hive broke the crowdfunding record when it first launched in 2015, and now has 75,000 users in more than 130 countries around the world.
“The home beekeeping community is incredibly enthusiastic about Flow Hive,” says Anderson. “I think what has happened is that the backyard has created a whole new experience for beekeepers. You can fill a jar of honey with your family in a way that was not possible before.”