PROTECTING OUR POLLINATORS

Meet the Aussie beekeepers giving back after their revolutionary hive design caused a buzz in apiaries worldwide.

- JENNIFER JOHNSTON

HONEY RUNS THROUGH Cedar Anderson's veins. A third-generation beekeeper, the 44-year-old is at the forefront of a global movement championing bees and protecting their habitats in the face of a worldwide biodiversity crisis. In 2015, together with his father, Stuart, Cedar developed the Flow Hive, an innovative Aussie invention providing a non-invasive honey harvesting system that is gentle on bees and easy on beekeepers. Their company, Flow, has grown into a multimillion-dollar business with some 110,000 Flow Hives in use in more than 130 countries. Now it’s giving back.

As well as promoting backyard beekeeping, Flow now offers educational online courses for beekeepers and supports habitat regeneration projects worldwide. Through Flow, the Andersons have brought together a global community of like-minded people who support being kinder to bees and caring for local environments that support the flora bees need to thrive.

“Beekeeping is a gateway hobby and we’re finding people campaigning to turn neighbourhoods into safe havens where bees want to be,” Cedar says. Interest in beekeeping is growing, he adds, in part due to the influence of celebrities such as David Beckham. In the opening scene of his 2023 four-part Netflix documentary, Beckham, the soccer superstar proudly shows off honey harvested from one of his nine Flow Hives.

“We were amazed to see our Flow Hives featured in one of the biggest documentaries the world is currently watching,” Cedar says. “That shows the connection we can have with bees on a global scale, and it helps spread the message about the importance of bees to our food chain.”