Meet the designer and founder – Phil Cornell

I started beekeeping in 2017 when I bought my first hive and was hooked. Living on 16 acres in the beautiful Adelaide Hills, we have the perfect setting for keeping bees and after bedding down my first colony I decided that this year I would add another 5.

Owning a design company, I couldn’t help looking at what was available and thinking that maintaining the Langstroth sizing and philosophy but removing the need for woodworking skills would be so much better than what was available. I also wanted to stay away from plastics and so I set to work and created a simple to assemble set of hive elements from local suppliers with the latest machinery to create the Next Hive range. I wanted to create a design with functionality yet a modern edge that would look as good in a backyard as it would on a cityscape rooftop.

Whilst understanding and respecting the tradition, I feel so passionately about the future of bees and I’ve seen so much interest from friends and family that I want to help make beekeeping as approachable and rewarding as keeping fish in a tank or pond.