Beekeeping innovation all the buzzzzz at Fieldays

Australian company Flow displayed introduced their innovative beehives at the Fieldays this year.

“This is the first time we have brought the hive over here personally to demonstrate it so it is really exciting to be here at Fieldays,”  research manager Emily Grace said.

“We’ve had fantastic crowds and a lot of interest.”

Flow claims  their special Flow Frames are the biggest innovation in beekeeping since the Langstroth hive was designed in 1852.

Beekeepers can have “honey on tap” with the company’s patented technology which collects pure, unfiltered honey with minimal effort.

Grace said the hives are perfect for beginners or beekeepers, such as the elderly, who may struggle with the physicality of beekeeping.

“My dad Stuart and I set to work on a decade-long task of inventing the beekeeper’s dream,” said Flow co-founder Cedar Anderson.

“We are so happy to say that now you can harvest the honey with virtually no disturbance to the bees.”

Flow has removed the need for expensive extra processing equipment, saving their customers money by streamlining the hive to jar process using a Flow Hive.

The process also means the bees living in the hives are not squeezed or crushed, and the keeper does not have to filter  dead bee parts out of their honey.  

“I think what we tapped into was a yearning in people to be more connected. The decline of bee populations had been on people’s minds, and I think people saw Flow as a sort of drawbridge to connect them with the natural world,” Flow co-founder Stu Anderson said.

As of this year, there are 65,000 Flow hives in more than 130 different countries.

The company started as a crowdfund campaign that asked for a little of $100,000, but instead attracted closer to $400,000 in the first 15 minutes.