Dylan Ryals is a life-long beekeeper with experience working on commercial pollination and queen-rearing apiaries. He is currently a PhD student under Dr. Brock Harpur at Purdue University where he studies honey bee genetics and breeding. He will speak on his ongoing research uncovering bee ancestry, genetic diversity, and population structure across the United States with special attention to feral and non-commercial populations. 

In this podcast, we will speak with Felipe Mendes from Brazil. Felipe is an arboreal and biodynamic beekeeper and consultant, pioneering innovative approaches to animal stewardship through the use of TreeNests (log hives). He works with Apis mellifera scutellata hybrids (Africanized bees) and has collaborated with the Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - MST) in Brazil, a social movement that occupies unused farmland to promote sustainable agriculture and economic self-sufficiency.

Dr. Ellis is the Gahan Endowed Professor of Entomology in the Entomology and Nematology Department at the University of Florida. At the University of Florida, Dr. Ellis has responsibilities in extension, instruction and research related to honey bees. Regarding his extension work, Dr. Ellis created the UF/IFAS Bee Colleges and the UF/IFAS Master Beekeeper Program. As an instructor, Dr. Ellis supervises Ph.D. and masters students. Dr. Ellis and his team conduct research projects in the fields of honey bee husbandry, biology, conservation, and ecology.

It is on honor to have Ollie Visick from the University of Sussex, UK, as our guest at the Salon. Ollie Visick is a fourth-year PhD student at the University of Sussex, UK, studying wild honey bee colonies under the supervision of Professor Francis Ratnieks. His main areas of research are wild colony density and nest site availability. He has reviewed the colony density literature and conducted his own surveys in southeast England. He is monitoring over 40 honey bee nest sites on 6 estates in Sussex and Kent to calculate long-term changes in colony density. He has surveyed over 1,000 ancient, veteran and other listed trees at an additional 10 sites to determine whether they represent important nest sites for wild colonies. He has also used waggle dance decoding of honey bee swarms to assess whether wild colonies are limited by nest sites in mixed urban-rural areas.

In this epidsode we are joined by Fred Pearce, author of The New Wild - Why Invasive Species will be Nature's Salvation,  Economists book of the year 2015.

Fred is an award-winning author and journalist based in London. He has reported on environmental, science, and development issues from eighty-five countries over the past twenty years. Environment consultant at New Scientist since 1992, he also writes regularly for the Guardian newspaper and Yale University’s prestigious e360 website. Pearce was voted UK Environment Journalist of the Year in 2001 and CGIAR agricultural research journalist of the year in 2002, and he won a lifetime achievement award from the Association of British Science Writers in 2011. His many books include With Speed and Violence, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, The Coming Population Crash, and The Land Grabbers.

Fred joins the Salon team to talk about his stunning book, the New Wild which has been so influencial in the teams understanding of honey bees postion in Europe and particulalrly North Amercia