New Innovation Project Focussing on Sustainable Agricultural Pollination

Despite its size (~$7 billion annually) the beekeeping industry is still dominated by 1850s technology and practices. With funding from the University of Leeds’ Institutional Translational Funding, Dr Derek Mitchell and Professor Harvey Thompson from the School of Mechanical Engineering, will be working with, HiveIQ Pty, manufacturer of the HiveIQ agritech system for beekeepers to create scientifically-rigorous guidelines for safe and effective beekeeping practice. With climate change putting honey bees under increased thermal stress the demand for hives that thermally buffer the bees within will only increase. The work will the first to focus on optimising the thermal performance of beehives to enable bees to thrive in diverse climates.

During his recently-completed PhD in the School of Mechanical Engineering, Dr Mitchell developed state-of-the-art experimental and simulation methods for optimising hive designs and configurations which have been published in numerous very highly-cited journal papers. The University of Leeds’ Press Office estimate that Derek’s work has reached around 270 million people and has his papers have been read > 470,000 times – the most popular articles from the University since early 2017.

The following figure shows the air flow velocity and temperature distribution of air and comb heated and cooled between two plates 334K and 300K.

Working with HiveIQ’s team of beekeepers, industrial designers and manufacturing experts, the project will ultimately enable beekeepers worldwide to keep healthier bees resulting in greater honey production from more sustainable agricultural pollination.