'HIVE' FIVE FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR

ADAM Rose was just 12 years old when he acquired his first bee hive and started extracting honey.

Now 17, the budding young entrepreneur has grown his Oxenford Honey business into a thriving enterprise, extracting more than 1000 kilograms of honey every couple of months. 

The idea for the buzzing business came to fruition when Rose was in Year 5 and was given a homework assignment which involved investigating an insect.

Rose says bees always fascinated him and, after extensive research, he saw opportunities in bee hives.

He says the most difficult part launching the business was convincing his parents to allow a swarm of bees to take up residence in the back yard.

"They (parents) are both busy people and were not really interested in taking on a whole lot of angry bees," says Rose.

"I have always had an interest in researching and putting together plans, so I pitched it to them as a well-researched proposal to show how many bee hives we would need to produce how much honey and what we would be able to do with that honey afterwards."

Rose says it was difficult being taken seriously as a 12 year old, but Oxenford Honey is now stocked in 11 Gold Coast stores and is available at five separate markets.

In addition, the business has grown from one bee hive to a collection of close to 50.

The business is also looking at exporting its honey and has sent a sample to a Chinese supermarket chain and has also received interest from the Middle East.

Rose says the company delivers a profit of about $60,000 a year.

In addition, Rose runs a fairy floss business. At the age of 13 he imported a fairly floss machine from China and he takes it to fetes and events across the Gold Coast.

This entrepreneurial spirit has led Rose to be awarded a Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship to study business and commerce at Bond University.

Rose says the scholarship took some pressure off waiting for an OP score and he is flattered after being accepted into the course he wanted at a great university.

The Vice-Chancellor's Scholarships are Bond University's longest standing and most prestigious scholarships, with students chosen based on their outstanding academic achievement, leadership and dedicated community achievements.

Bond University vice-chancellor Professor Tim Brailsford says this year had been particularly competitive, with an exceptional calibre of student applications from throughout Australia.

"The Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship's are awarded to Australia's best and brightest students and the quality of applicants was so strong this year that we decided to award 10 scholarships, instead of the usual eight," he says.

"We are very excited to welcome Adam to the Bond community."

Rose was also hand-picked as a representative for Australia in the Global Young Leaders Conference in New York this year, which saw 400 young leaders from across the world converge for a United Nations-style summit.