Featured monthly startup: HiveKeepers

HiveKeepers has spent the past year doing the hard part of an agritech journey: turning a working product into a business that other people can buy, stock and trust.

Founded by Simon Mildren, the Melbourne startup builds the Micro Honey Harvester, a compact system designed to take the mess, bulk and physical strain out of extracting honey.

Traditional harvesting often means uncapping frames, hauling a large extractor and cleaning up wax and debris. HiveKeepers’ approach is smaller and cleaner: frames with removable cassettes drop into a standard hive, and a benchtop harvester spins out pure honey in seconds, ready to jar without a separate filtering step. It is built for backyard beekeepers as well as producers who want a simpler way to offer traceable, small-batch honey.

Over the past 12 months, HiveKeepers has moved from product development into commercialisation. Following the launch of the Micro Honey Harvester, the products are now sold across five countries through a growing network of distribution partners.

The year has also brought international recognition. HiveKeepers received a Gold Award at the World Beekeeping Awards for the innovation and quality of its technology. The awards, run by Apimondia and often called the Olympics of beekeeping, are a rare stage for an early commercial product. For a founder who spent years refining the system with Melbourne design studio Katapult Design, and with beekeepers testing it in the field, the award is external proof that the problem was worth solving.

Attention has now shifted to scale. Simon’s focus is a clearer go-to-market plan: widening the distribution network, building awareness with beekeepers and retailers, supporting stockists, and preparing production for larger volumes as demand grows.

HiveKeepers is this month’s featured startup. You could be next! Fill in this form here.

Learn more: hivekeepers.com

Founder: Simon Mildren, simon@hivekeepers.com