The messy technique of harvesting honey, which has evolved very little since the early days of beekeeping, is about to become a lot cleaner with the revolutionary invention brought forth by a father-and-son duo from Byron Bay in New South Wales.
According to the article on Startup Smart, Australian beekeepers Cedar and Stuart Anderson have developed an ingenious way to harvest honey without opening a hive and disturbing the bees.
It works by providing the bees with a partially-completed wall of honeycomb cells which they then complete with their own wax. The bees then fill the cells with honey and cap them, after which the beekeeper inserts a tool into the top of each frame and twists – a move that splits each cell in the honeycomb vertically – allowing the honey to flow freely down to a sealed trough at the base of the frame and out of the hive, without disturbing the bees.
To fund their invention – called Flow – the pair took to crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, where they managed to smash their initial target of $US70,000 in a matter of hours and now surpassed the $US4 million mark to become the third most-funded project in Indiegogo’s history, with more than 10,000 backers.
Cedar Anderson, Co-founder of Flow, said the crowdfunding campaign has surpassed even their wildest expectations.
“That we’re now the most successful-ever crowdfunding venture ever launched outside of the US is just incredible. The response has been humbling and has already far exceeded our expectations,” Mr Anderson said.
“We’re blown away and really hope this leads to increased bee numbers and better bee health around the world.”
He also said in a recent post on Indiegogo that the company will be able to negotiate up to 50% off their backers’ shipping costs due to the overwhelming support from all around the world.
“Expanding manufacturing to the US will also reduce shipping costs for those in America or close by,” he said.
“Where possible we will source the wooden hive boxes and frames closer to you to reduce shipping costs and support your local beekeeping suppliers. We will add some estimates of shipping soon. Once again thank you all so much for being a part of this project.”
