Dr Derek Mitchell is a research fellow at the University of Leeds Institute of Thermofluids within the School of Mechanical Engineering . He researches into the heat transfer of man-made and natural honeybee nests. His PhD thesis was entitled “The Thermofluid engineering of the honeybee nest (Apis Mellifera). He has had articles published in Beecraft, Bee Culture, American Bee Journal and Natural Honey bee husbandry in addition to his published academic work in the Royal Society Journal, Journal of Thermal Biology and International Journal of Biometeorology.

Derek’s curiosity about this area of honey bees and heat started when Elaine, his wife, bought their first hive in 2010 and his physics and engineering training, told him what they had been told about honey bees and the hives wasn’t the complete story. This curiosity has resulted in his ground breaking and often controversial research into honey bees.

Some of which has been cited by Prof. Thomas D. Seeley, the foremost authority on honey bee ecology, as the “Best source of information on about the differences in insulation value between tree cavities and standard wooden hives and about the effects of these differences on the energetics of colony thermoregulation”. Seeley has included Derek’s research in his latest book “The Lives of Bees: the Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild”.

Professor Adam Hart, an entomologist from the University of Gloucestershire who co-presented BBC2’s Series Hive Alive about honeybees said “This research is fascinating – winter losses have become a feature of beekeeping and hive design could be a simple way to help honeybees. It is amazing to think that a practice adopted in the War to save wood might be contributing to the losses that beekeepers experience”.

The research apart from publications has also led to speaking to not only academic conferences but to Beekeeping groups including: Apimondia 2019, National Honey show, BBKA Spring conventions and over 80 local beekeeping associations in the UK, Germany, USA and Serbia. In addition Derek has featured his work on numerous podcasts.

Brad Metz is a Research Scholar with NC State Apiculture Program under David Tarpy. He is the lead scientist in charge of the Honey Bee Queen & Disease Clinic, an extension effort bringing lab-quality disease and reproductive assessments to industry and government partners. He additionally runs a small research program concerning the impact of abiotic stressors on honey bee and wild bee physiology & reproduction, impacts of environmental stress on pollinator communities and, honey bee microbiome & behavior. Brad is married with two children, both of whom think working with stinging insects is crazy -perhaps his greatest failure.

Tammy Horn Potter has been the Kentucky State Apiarist but just recently started a new position as Beginner Beekeeper grant coordinator for Kentucky State University. In addition to the varia of grants and newsletters, she has also written Bees in America: How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation (2005); Beeconomy: What Women and Bees teach us about Local Trade and Global Markets (2012); Flower Power: Establishing Pollinator Habitat (2019); and Work I Knew I Must: Forty-One Years of Factory Life, a compilation of A.I. Root’s and his employee Jane Cole’s writings (2021).

David started beekeeping in the early 1990s and started a beekeeping business several years later. In 2006 David began blogging and uploading beekeeping videos to YouTube. His YouTube channel has grown to around 152,000 subscribers. He also produces a weekly beekeeping podcast.

In 2020 David & Sheri were approached by Rockridge press to write the book “Backyard Beekeeping: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your First Hive.”

He has produced a suite of online beekeeping courses that have become very popular among new beekeepers.

David produces queens, nucs and packages. In order to make sure beekeepers had the best and latest scientific information on bees and beekeeping, David became a Certified Master Beekeeper through the Eastern Apicultural Society (2010). He also writes a weekly column for Bee Culture Magazine.

David teaches beekeeping workshops all year at their Training Center in Fairmount, IL. He also has a mentorship program known as Beeteam6, talks throughout the country at beekeeping conferences and is heard frequently on radio shows and podcasts.