FlowHive
A bee hive harvesting its own honey
As the world’s bee apocalypse continues, anything that further connects humans and our apian friends is important. Flow Hive, invented by an Australian father/son duo and funded by an amazing $13 million on Indiegogo, takes some of the difficulty–and stings–out of beekeeping. The “Flow Hive” represents real technological progress. The traditional process of honey extraction involved sedating bees with smoke, removing plates, stripping down the comb, and then spinning the mixture with a centrifuge to get liquid honey–all while wearing a heavy suit. The “Flow Hive” needs little human intervention; when you see the plate are full of honey, you just twist a lever to have the honey fall down. Some might argue that this takes the mindfulness out of beekeeping, but eating local honey is good for your health, and supporting local bees is good for the entire world, so anything that increases the number of people actively caring about bees seems worth it.