He is 18 years old, has a blonde mohawk and likes to boss his mother about, but self confidence and funky hair are all part of Mitch Pearce's plan to save Canberra's bee population.

Mitch is believed to be Australia's youngest commercial urban beekeeper.

He's taking a greater role in his family's urban beekeeping business now that he's finished school.

"My mum was already doing the urban beekeeping thing, which I was already helping out with because I grew up around bees with my Grandad being a commercial beekeeper, and it kind of just ticked all the boxes of what wanted to do," he says.

"You know, being outside, striving towards something, so I kind of said to Mum, 'this is something I want to take to the next level so let's do this'."

Mitch and his mother, Carmen Pearce-Brown tend to hives scattered throughout the nation's capital and sell their honey at local farmers' market.

With his spiky blonde mohawk and shiny eyebrow stud, he admits he looks more like he's stepped out of a hip Sydney cafe than a backyard full of bees.

"I definitely don't look like a beekeeper, I definitely don't look like a farmer," he laughs.

"The story with the mohawk is it was a tool for confidence, the mohawk actually helps me out with the business side because it's easy to forget my name but it's hard to forget my haircut!"

Together with his mother he's on a mission to save Canberra's bee population.

"(The business) started with an outcry from the public...people telling us the bees were missing," he said.

"So that is an issue that America and a lot of parts of Europe are struggling with, so they're in the crisis, they're having it.

"And that, for us, noticing that bees are starting to deteriorate and decreasing is for us warning signs that we are heading down the whole of the same crisis.

"At the base level, what I'm doing is try to prevent that to some extent.

The project is very much a family affair and Carmen admits Mitch does like to "boss her around a bit". But it's all good fun and she's delighted he's taking such an active role in the business.

"It's interesting and it fills me with such joy and pride."