Victor Croker

Founder and CEO

I am a third-generation commercial beekeeper in Australia with around 40 years commercial beekeeping experience. My business partner David Leemhuis and I run 1500 hives producing around 150,000kg/330,000lb of honey per season and we pollinate almonds and other crops. 2010 was a particularly wet and cold winter and we saw our bees suffering with condensation and mould in the hive so we began to test EPS insulated hives. We discovered that insulation really matters. Our insulated hives produced 30%+ more honey than our wooden hives and we saw a significant reduction in diseases such as chalk brood and nosema.

The insulated hives on the market were not optimised or ruggedized for commercial beekeeping, so we began to redesign the hive from the ground up. After 5+ years of designing and prototyping, and thousands of hours of field testing, we launched the HiveIQ, highly insulated and ruggedized next generation beehive in Australia in 2022.

We have also been buzzy developing an enterprise grade beekeeping management and monitoring system which is aimed to empower beekeepers of all levels - from the backyard to the large commercial beekeepers to keep healthier and more productive bees.