NHMS team | National Honey Monitoring Scheme

Staff

Prof. Richard Pywell

Head of Biodiversity research

Professor Richard Pywell is Head of Biodiversity research at UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Dr. Ben Woodcock

Ecological Entomologist

Ben has worked with honeybees, wild bees and other insects in and around agricultural land for the last 20 years.

Dr. Anna Oliver

It was due to Anna's commitment to making the NHMS a success that saw participant numbers rise.

Dr. Jennifer Shelton

Molecular Ecologist

Jenny took over running of the day-to-day aspects of the NHMS in October 2022.

Eleanor Grove

Laboratory technician

Ellie is the lab technician responsible for carrying out the start of the honey pipeline.

Dr. Lindsay Newbold

Molecular Microbial Ecologist

Lindsay has been a key member of the NHMS since its inception, applying her molecular skills to look at the interactions between forage and the landscape.

Dr. David Roy

Head of the Biological Records Centre

David is an ecologist with a particular interest in monitoring of biodiversity, particularly using citizen science approaches.

Emily Upcott

Spatial Ecologist

As a spatial ecologist, Emily extracts the landscape data surrounding every hive to get a picture of their local habitats.

Anthea Milnes

Head of Comms and Engagement at UKCEH

Anthea is the Head of Comms and Engagement at UKCEH.

Biren Rathod

Web Developer

Biren is involved mostly on the technical side of the website.

Joanna Savage

Ecologist and project coordinator

Jo is an ecologist and project coordinator who has been providing a high level of scientific support to the National Honey Monitoring Scheme since 2018.

PhD students

Michael Bennett

Michael started his PhD with the NHMS in September 2023 co-supervised by Lindsay, Ben and Richard at UKCEH and Dr Soon Gweon at University of Reading (previously a bioinformation at UKCEH.

Insect pollinators are an integral component of global ecosystems, and vital to future food security. UK and worldwide pollinator populations are declining, with declines widely attributed to agricultural intensification, the establishment of invasive species, disease and climate change. However, the direction, strength and causes of insect declines are highly variable, and evidence is needed to quantify the mechanisms driving these processes. One key topic is the role of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) and potential disease spillover from managed to wild bee populations.

Through a combination of cutting edge field and laboratory techniques this project will explore the use of emerging DNA sequencing technologies to investigate :

Can common bee pathogens be detected in eDNA?
Are honeybees a good sentinel species to explore managed and wild pollinator interactions?
Do any common plant signatures occur between pollinators, and are these linked to potential disease transmission sites?

Masters students

We are currently advertising three Masters projects with the NHMS:

Detecting bee pathogen DNA in honey samples collected by UK beekeepers from 2018-2023 - co-supervised by Jenny and Lindsay at UKCEH. [On-site] More details here.
Detecting microplastics in honey samples collected by UK beekeepers from 2018-2023 - co-supervised by Jenny and Dr Rich Cross at UKCEH. [On-site] More details here.
National Honey Monitoring Scheme: Implications of pesticide exposure for honey bee health - co-supervised by Jenny and Ben at UKCEH. [Remote] More details here.

These projects are currently being advertised to Master's students on Imperial College London's Silwood campus but if you are interested in doing one of these projects, or have your own idea for a project you'd like to do with the NHMS, please email honey@ceh.ac.uk.