Salon No. 31 With Derek Mitchell

Arboreal Apiculture Salon

In this podcast we learn that through math(s) we can prove that some of our long held beliefs about honeybees are wrong. Derek Mitchell researches into the heat transfer of man-made and natural honeybee nests at the School of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Leeds where he has recently completed his Phd with a thesis 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 and International Journal of Biometeorology. Recent papers include:

Publications: Mitchell D (2023) Honeybees cluster together when it’s cold – but we’ve been completely wrong about why The Conversation November 24, 2023 https://theconversation.com/honeybees-cluster-together-when-its-cold-but-weve-been-completely-wrong-about-why-218066Mitchell, D.M. (2023_ Honey Bee Cluster – not insulation but stressful heat sink Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Mitchell, D.M. (2023). Are Man-Made Hives valid thermal surrogates for natural Honey Bee nests [in review] Journal of Thermal Biology. Mitchell, D.(2022) Honey bee ( Apis mellifera ) size determines colony heat transfer when brood covering or distributed,” Int. J. Biometeorol., vol. Accepted for publication.