When a heatwave wiped out boxes of native stingless bees in their backyard, hobbyists Jeff and Ann Ross set out to find a solution.

They founded Hive Haven and after three years of planning, development and testing have now begun production of insulated moulded hives, made from recyclable plastic.

"That's been our big purpose, to create a hive that will alleviate hives overheating," Ms Ross said.

"The research and development has taken a lot longer than what we anticipated.

"We have to put the native bees in the box, do the temperature testing. Make sure the bees are happy and that they're not overheating."

Each hive has four entrances, which the native bees open and close themselves. ( ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols )

Hive Haven's first expensive 3D printed prototypes were abandoned, after the native bees began to die on days of extreme heat.

Ms Ross said the new moulded model has an insulation cavity between the outer and inner walls that can be filled with either a liquid or a soft solid.

"It really sets us up for climate change and innovation."

The hexagonal hives are being manufactured on the Sunshine Coast, after prototypes were tested for two years at sites including Australia Zoo, Maleny Dairies, The Innovation Centre, QUT, a school, and a retirement village.

Hive Haven's native honey has been exported to China, selling for $15 per 30 grams. ( Supplied: Hive Haven )

"We're pretty excited, it's a major step for the industry, nobody yet has taken the plunge or invested the amount of funds in as what we have, but we can just see it's an up-and-coming agribusiness for Queensland," Ms Ross said.

"The hard work's been done. Now they're coming off the production line we're confident which insulation will work. We've just got to get it signed off by the Queensland University of Technology with their big temperature chambers.

"Our next movement will be in developing the honey processing method, how to harvest honey more efficiently."

Ms Ross likened native bee honey to truffles, each hive only produces around one kilogram of honey a year.

"I'm currently sending small quantities of native honey to China. We put it into small 30 gram containers and we sell those for $45 per unit and they're snapping up like hot cakes. It tastes really, really beautiful," she said.

Hive Haven's earlier prototypes have been trialled at several sites including Maleny Dairies. ( ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols )

"A lot of research has been done into the medicinal and the health qualities of the native honey.

"I think it's a product we'll see a lot more of in the future and I think it's a great opportunity to farmers to value add to their existing crops. We all need pollination."

Ms Ross said the hives were developed to allow access to check for disease and pests such as the small hive beetle.

"Two years ago people were saying that the small hive beetle would never affect the native bee, whereas now we are hearing quite a few reports of small hive beetle absolutely decimating native bee hives," she said.

"We've designed the entries to the hive hopefully as a barrier. We've got kind of little grids over them that actually a small hive beetle can't fit through but a little native bee can fit through if they wish."

More than 350 customers pre-ordered the hives which retail at $385 for an empty hive and upwards of $800 dollars with stingless bees included.

Last month Hive Haven received a $100,000 boost from the State Government's Advance Queensland Ignite Ideas fund to enable it to scale up honey production, investigate methods for stabilising stingless native honey for local and export commercial use, and explore agri-business scalability for native bee farming.

"Part of that funding will be to do a study on the economic value of native bee farming to Queensland," Ms Ross said.

"It'll be a public document and we'll be giving that document back for the betterment of the industry in Queensland; it's a new industry that's yet to be developed."