guts behind the design today, where we
have channels that form inside the comb
in a vertical direction at the turn of a lever
from outside of the hive.”
There were many challenges still to
be faced by father and son at their honey
farm near Byron Bay in New South Wales,
Australia, such as fashioning moving parts
inside the combs to create the channels
that would prevent the bees’ legs or wings
being caught when honey harvesting was
in progress. “We achieved that by building
in bee-shaped clearances, whereby, if the
bees are are down the cells, they can then
pull themselves out.” Another challenge
was how do we make it all cost effective.
“When we designed the rst hives, we had
big metal cam rods down the centre of
the frame. Then we changed that, so the
beekeeper had just one tool to operate
multiple frames. Another challenge was
future-proong our frames for automation.
We overcame that by putting a nice wide
slot for the ‘open’ and ‘close’ positions.
This allows us to use pneumatic tubes for
automatic harvesting.”
Prototyping was also something
they had to resolve, as 3D printing was
quite expensive for the quality they were
seeking. “We actually paid $2,000, when
we had very little money to invest, to print
a small section of a comb to carry out a
proof of concept on our vertical separation
method. That was the rst jar of honey
that came out of a hive, which was actually
a pretty exciting moment.”But they knew
they now had to scale up, testing the Flow
Hive across multiple hives with different
beekeepers around the world, to establish
whether or not the bees would accept
the concept. “We had to make the jump
to injection moulding really quickly, which
was expensive, but luckily we got a loan
off my grandfather to do that.”
All sorts of materials were considered
for the construction, including glass, metal
and plastic. “However, when you’ve got
honey on metallic surfaces, because it’s
a bit acidic, you can even taste it on a
teaspoon,” states Cedar Anderson. “So,
metal was ruled out and glass didn’t
really make sense. Lots of beekeepers
use plastic fully-drawn frames or plastic
foundations in their brood boxes, so we
chose the best one that was already
accepted both by bees and beekeepers –
and that’s polypropylene.”
The Andersons also wanted to use
the best food grade they could nd.
“The materials for the clear faces were
important and we chose a copolyester,
because that’s what they use in babies’
bottles, for example, and it’s free from
BPA and BPS or any bisphenol products.”
The rest of the hive was kept as
natural as possible, letting the bees
draw their comb from wooden frames,
rather than any plastic being used in the
brood box. “Most of the early design and
actual prototyping was done by myself, in
conjunction with my father. Then I would
make up a quick, rough prototype, put it
in the hive and it would often be months
and months before getting any feedback
from the bees on whether they liked it – or
whether indeed it would work at all!”
The upshot was a process that took
something like a decade from initial
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