A revolutionary backyard beekeeping invention, where honey flows direct from a tap in a hive, has taken out the nation's top design award.

The Flow Hive raised more than $US12 million in pre-sales when it was listed on crowd funding website Indiegogo last year.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 2 minutes 41 seconds 2 m 41 s Flow Hive's Stuart Anderson says the Good Design Award of the Year recognises the work put into the invention. ( ABC Rural: Kim Honan ) Download 1.2 MB

It was designed by father and son team Stuart and Cedar Anderson, from Byron Bay in northern New South Wales.

Stuart Anderson said it was a tremendous feeling to win the Good Design Award of the Year because it recognised how much work had been put into the design.

"It means a lot because it's affirmed our inventive ability," he said.

"We did put so much, years and years and years of attention and effort into the design of the Flow Hive.

"To have very experienced people look at what we've done and say, 'Wow, that is a very significant piece of technology', even though it's agricultural equipment, that's really pleasing and very, very deeply affirming of what we've done."

Father and son inventors of the Flow Hive, Cedar and Stuart Anderson, are thrilled with the success of their invention. ( ABC News: Vanessa Gorman )

Mr Anderson said the feedback from the judges of the award had been "pretty much ecstatic".

"It was overwhelming in many ways. They were very very pleased to be supporting us," he said.

"They were excited by what we've done and what we've achieved in the year and a half since we released the Flow Hive to the world.

"They were so pleased it's an Australian invention being built in Australia, made in Australia, and that is the biggest change in beekeeping for 150 years."

The last of the 25,000–30,000 pre-sale crowdfunded Flow Hives were delivered last month.

"Which means because half our orders were for people who hadn't kept bees before, many of them were experienced but hadn't kept their own, that means maybe 10,000 to 15,000 new beekeepers around the world," Mr Anderson said.

"Which I'm very pleased about, because I think being able to keep bees brings you into contact with the natural world in a way that can both inspire and inform you about how connected we are, how dependent we are on a myriad of creatures for the quality of life we enjoy."

Australia's Good Design Awards have been running since 1958.