Three years ago, a father and son in Australia finally unveiled a device they had spent a decade inventing: a beehive that releases honey via a tap, without needing to handle the bees.

The pair, Stuart and Cedar Anderson, who live in the hinterland near Byron Bay in eastern Australia, an area popular with hippies, artists and surfers, hoped to raise US $70,000 (£50,000) for their invention on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo. They reached their target in seven minutes.

Over the next 24 hours, the pair received a record-breaking $2.2 million, scrambling to find bank accounts that would permit such vast deposits.

By the end of the eight-week campaign, they had received $12.2 million, amounting to 25,000 orders from 130 countries, in one of the world’s most successful crowdfunding projects.

The invention – which they called the Flow Hive – has been credited with revolutionising beekeeping. It has also encouraged a new wave of beekeepers, who, it is hoped, will help to resist a recent global decline in the bee population.