Once our production apiary has been established, we plan to work closely with various bodies, such as the BBKA, DEFRA, CSL, NBI who have lines of research that need funding and actioning. Plymouth University has been approached to share the thinking and analysis workload.

It is estimated that 80% of the food produced worldwide is directly or indirectly due to bees and their activities. A famous thinker once mused that three or four years after the last bee dies mankind will die – we hope to help avoid that happening, whilst producing food too!

Unfortunately, honey bees are under serious attack from a number of parasites. Bee-keepers in the past tried to find the 'perfect bee' and in doing so introduced problems like the Varroa mite which originates from Asia. Yet another pest (Small Hive Beetle) is also threatening to arrive in the UK and attack honey bee colonies. So the need to find simple, effective, and hopefully non chemical ways of managing things is very important.

We are very lucky to have in addition to the main production apiary, a selection of alternative smaller apiary spots that unique experimental hive set ups can be maintained. Simple things like spacing between hives, angle of the entrance, angle of the frames within the hives, might all help in the quest for ways to live with or eradicate these pests.

Mike Gill, the apiary manager, has long tried to minimise the use of chemical treatments used with bees for fear of it reaching the honey later in the year. He recommends you always following the suppliers instructions. He also imposes his own methods to reduce cross contamination. Such as:

a — Leaving suitable time gaps between treatment and the introduction of honey supers
a — Changing the brood comb every two or three years
b — Changing the hive brood boxes, floors, crown board, and roof each year
c — Cleaning the removed boxes with a blow torch and scraping
d — Avoiding contact with infected bees stocks elsewhere
e — Using freezing temperatures to kill off wax moth eggs and lava

Mike would also like to see an integrated pest management and control system without resorting to the use of chemicals. Our aim is provide the local research thinkers local facilities where tests and experiments can be conducted to their exacting standards keep records, and join in the debates and discussion over the results.