Speakers

Josef has been working in bee research for over 40 years, both with honey bees and bumblebees. The main topics in his research are the interaction between the environment and the honeybee colony, honey bee and bumblebee ecotoxicology, bumblebee rearing, and bumblebee pathology. He has been a member of the Coloss bee researchers network executive board. His Ph.D. thesis was about the honeybee colony as a biomonitoring tool of the environment. After I retired from Wageningen University and Research (WUR) in 2017, I started my SME: AlveusAB Consultancy. He  participates in EU- and EFSA studies. Since 2018, he coordinates the INSIGNIA study. INSIGNIA developed a practical scientifically substantiated protocol/handbook for Citizen Scientist beekeepers to apply honey bee colonies as a biomonitoring tool for pollen diversity, pesticides, and other contaminants. Furthermore, temporal and spatial models for pesticide exposure risk and pollen diversity have been developed. Until now, besides popular articles in beekeepers magazines,  he published as first author and co-author 35 scientific papers and a chapters the FAO Guidelines on Sustainable Beekeeping.