The hippie turned beekeeping baron backed by Beckham and Hemsworth
A free-range childhood led Cedar Anderson and his dad to take a gamble on their beehive invention. Now, with celebrity customers and millions from investors, they’ve found sweet success.
It was the aroma of freshly harvested honey that first drew Cedar Anderson into beekeeping.
“Once you start looking after bees, this whole world opens up. It is a continuous journey of learning, problem-solving, observing behaviour, understanding the seasons and how they interact with the colony. It becomes this beautiful process,” he says.
“But more than that, the hive becomes a kind of window into the environment. Bees range out in a six-mile radius and bring back nectar from every corner. That pulls you into their world. Suddenly, you are noticing the flowers blooming, the smells in the air, the patterns in the weather.
“The bees become teachers in a way. They connect you to the food system, to your local ecology, and to your own rhythms. It is amazing how often people say, ‘Keeping bees changed the way I look at the world’.”
The Andersons are a beekeeping family dating back to Cedar’s now 98-year-old grandfather, who still keeps hives in his home town of Queanbeyan, outside Canberra.
Cedar Anderson began beekeeping at the age of six and with his father Stuart spent a decade working on inventing a beehive that since 2015 has revolutionised the ease of beekeeping, offering a non-invasive honey-extraction process that has grown strongly globally.
Their Flow Hive beehive, which allows honey to be extracted with minimal disruption to the bees, now has a customer base of more than 100,000 beekeepers worldwide.
Celebrity Flow Hive owners abroad include former football star David Beckham, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and actor Chris Hemsworth, while in Australia they include television star Joanna Griggs and former journalist Chris Bath.
There are now more than 855,000 beehives registered across Australia and the commercial sector is reportedly worth more than $265m, while recreational beekeeping is valued at more than $173.5m.
The Andersons have also contributed more than $1m to pollinator conservation initiatives globally.
The mission of the company is to have a regenerative impact on the planet through innovation in beekeeping.
Earlier this year the firm also launched the “Super Lifter”, transforming the process for essential hive inspections, which have traditionally involved lifting boxes weighing up to 30kg.
It allows the gentle lifting and tilting of boxes without disrupting the bees, reducing the risk of injuries, making hive management easier and more accessible to beekeepers of all ages and abilities.
“The top box is often really heavy with honey and a real pain to lift off, and sometimes you need two people. So we whittled away for a long time on quite complex ways to solve that problem, but eventually it kept coming back to being just a simple thing,” Anderson says.
“That problem solving has been getting amazing feedback. People write in saying, ‘I was about to give beekeeping away. Now I can continue’. It really is a time and heavy-lifting saver.”
How Flow Hive was started
At the age of 72, Stuart Anderson – who his son describes as a mechanic, electrician, builder and plumber rolled into one – is still involved in the family business on daily basis, mainly in their Byron Bay workshop.
“Dad has got a great technical mind. It is amazing to sit down with him and brainstorm. We will work through a problem, bounce ideas around and then hit the tools together. It is very collaborative,” Anderson says, before adding that he has long driven the strategy of the business.
“I’ve always been the one driving things. My dad doesn’t have much of a business head, so I’ve taken on that role. I’m the final decision-maker, and he respects that. That is important, because his decisions wouldn’t always lead to great business outcomes.”
Anderson grew up living in what was known as an intentional community – or a modern-day commune – on 65 hectares in the hills north of Lismore in northern NSW. He was nearly six weeks old when his parents named him Cedar because his blond-red hair reminded them of red cedar trees.
“It was a wonderful way to grow up,” he says. “Very free-range, if you like. There were about 20 adults and 20 kids running around on a forested mountainside. We had a communal pantry of food, so it kind of felt like everyone’s house was your house.”
Every morning his father would walk him and his two elder brothers to their community learning centre. Stuart always encouraged his kids to build things.
“We had a big workshop where my dad was this jack-of-all-trades. He fixed the communal cars, built a power system so we could have lights at night, and installed turbines in the creek, solar panels, everything. We were totally off-grid.”
Even after his parents split when he was four, Anderson maintained strong ties to both.
His mother eventually moved to the town of Bangalow and now lives just down the road from him. “We stay in close touch, bringing the kids over on weekends and that sort of thing,” he says.
Family ties behind the business
At the age of 18 he started his own commune and at 21 met his wife, Kylie Ezart, in the hippie town of Nimbin while playing guitar in a band called the Red Eyed Frogs.
She has been by his side for the 24 years since.
“She was actually a friend of the singer’s girlfriend. I ended up hooking up with her straight off the stage one night,” Anderson says with a laugh. “I know it might not be the most appropriate story, but that’s how it happened.”
Anderson was also born with a passion for conservation in his blood. His parents were involved in the famous protests in 1979 to stop logging in the Terania Creek rainforest in northern NSW, the first successful forest blockade in the world. His uncle worked with NGOs all his life, and spent a decade with Greenpeace International as its forest co-ordinator.
Anderson himself initially worked as a paragliding instructor before becoming an environmental activist with Greenpeace, undertaking missions to document deforestation in Sumatra, illegal burnings, and the destruction of orangutan habitats.
But he never lost his interest in beekeeping. When he returned to the Byron Bay hinterland, the hives of his youth were still there. He and his father started work on the Flow Hive.
While business experts advised against taking a crowdfunding approach to fund the project, Anderson and his father trusted their instincts, raising $US1m in just one hour and $US12.2m in eight weeks. Originally, they were looking to raise just $US70,000.
At the time of the crowd raising, Anderson’s home also looked set to be sold from underneath him by his landlord, at the same time as Kylie was expecting their first child. The unexpected financial windfall allowed them to buy the house, even as their baby arrived early.
For the business, the funding supported the Andersons making 25,000 Flow Hives for customers across 140 countries.
“There were a lot of experts telling us to launch small, to pilot it just in one country, or to hold off,” he says. “But we knew that once people saw the video of the product, it was going to go global. The concept was too compelling not to share widely.
“My dad and I were also used to living off $100 at a time. That was just how we rolled. So the idea of taking on venture capital or giving away control of the invention, that didn’t sit right with us. We wanted to hold onto it, make sure it succeeded on our terms, and that it was good for the bees, the environment, and for the community.”
They have not raised an extra cent of capital since, and have no plans to.
“Being self-funded has allowed us to retain full ownership and make decisions based on our views and values, rather than pleasing shareholders, like often happens in the world,” Anderson says.
“While we could be one of those companies that goes, ‘We want to get to this level, by that time,’ we don’t have to, right? We are doing fine and in a way I just think natural growth is better for the world.”
Biological threats to beekeeping
The biggest threat to Australian beekeeping right now is biological. The Varroa mite, a parasitic pest that has devastated colonies overseas, was discovered in Newcastle in 2022 and is steadily spreading.
In this context, the Super Lifter has been a timely invention, allowing more efficient hive checks and supporting beekeepers in addressing emerging challenges while minimising the impact on hives.
The Andersons are now also working on a revolutionary, non-bee-killing Varroa testing device.
“We’ve got a lot to learn from the rest of the world, but it is a big deal in Australia at the moment, so we are turning our minds on how to make the management of those mites easier,” Anderson says.
Beekeeping is now into the fourth generation in the Anderson family, with Cedar’s seven-year-old daughter Mella and ten-year-old son Jarli both into beekeeping.
“They have got hives of their own,” their father says proudly.
“I have to say, my son is much more interested in selling jars of honey than he is getting in and doing the beekeeping at the moment. But whatever drives you, right? At least he likes the honey, that is a start. He is a little entrepreneur in that way.”
Now 46, Cedar Anderson wants to build environmental views and values so deep into the family business that the Flow Hive brand would be worthless without them, “so it can go on doing things beyond our years”.
“I love inventing things and problem solving, and particularly would like to help with things that are shifting humans in a direction that is more sustainable,” he says. “Making things that solve problems is what really excites me.”
Stuart Anderson continues to be an inspiration for his son, especially for the work he does outside the business in supporting family and helping the victims of domestic violence.
Cedar Anderson says the most important lesson in life from his father has been “to have a go”.
“Because if you don’t try, you won’t know, right?” he says. “There is no learning without doing. I think to build up the confidence and the competency to invent or create, you first have to believe you can. That belief is where it starts. We were always tinkering and fixing things, having a go. That lifestyle of just trying things is a huge part of inventing.
“I think people who grow up on farms get that too. They use what is lying around to solve real problems, and that is the heart of creative problem-solving.”
The Andersons have always happily blurred the lines between the business and the personal. But Cedar has always ensured the former has never upset the relationship with his father.
“I said this from day dot,” he says. “If anything comes between us in our relationship, I’d rather give the business away.”
More Coverage
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout