I’m Richard, a terrestrial ecotoxicologist fascinated by honey bees. Since my student days, I have studied bee diseases and applied that knowledge as a beekeeper. Over time, my research broadened. Today, I focus on how bees interact with agricultural practices. In particular, I am interested in how management and plant protection shape bee health.
Together with my wife, I run an apiary of about 10–15 colonies. We produce local honey, breed queens, and establish new colonies each year. In this way, our practical beekeeping stays closely connected to my scientific work.
A core strand of my work examines how plant protection products (PPPs) interact with pathogens and how sublethal, non-lethal exposures affect individual bees and whole colonies. To detect effects that often go unnoticed, I use modern techniques such as RFID tagging and capacitive sensor technology. In addition, I lead honey-bee monitoring in real agricultural landscapes within the FInAL project. There, we link seasonal forage use and PPP residues to colony development under field conditions.
Previously, I coordinated the VIBEE project, which focused on the vitality of bee colonies in agricultural landscapes, and co-launched NutriBee. In these projects, we investigated how stressors such as fungicide exposure and pollen deprivation affect colony health. As a result, both projects helped establish methodological frameworks that are now used in current studies.
At the Julius Kühn-Institut’s Institute for Bee Protection, my broader goal is to advance methods for assessing chronic and sublethal risks to honey bees after pesticide application across lab, semi-field, and field studies. Therefore, I place a strong focus on realistic beekeeping scenarios and practical relevance.
On this website, you can explore my research, projects, and publications. You’ll find more about my work on the other pages—and how to get in touch if you would like to collaborate.
Why I work with honey bees
My interest in honey bees began long before I entered research. Beekeeping showed me how closely colony health is tied to environmental conditions, agricultural practice, and landscape structure. These early experiences shaped my scientific motivation and still guide the questions I pursue today.
Moreover, bees offer a unique window into how ecological processes operate at multiple scales, from individual physiology to colony dynamics and landscape-level stressors. Their sensitivity to environmental change makes them extremely valuable for studying interactions among pesticides, pathogens, nutrition, and weather. This combination of biological fascination and applied relevance continues to inspire my work.
How I approach research
I aim to combine experimental precision with ecological realism. Laboratory and semi-field studies help us isolate specific mechanisms. At the same time, field monitoring reveals how these mechanisms interact with real-world conditions such as flowering phenology, land use, and beekeeping management. This integrative perspective is essential for understanding sublethal stressor effects that only unfold gradually over time.
Furthermore, by merging classical apicultural methods with modern technologies—sensor systems, automated flight counters, RFID tracking, and long-term hive monitoring—I strive to generate evidence that contributes to better pesticide risk assessment and pollinator-friendly agricultural practice. Collaboration with statisticians, modellers, and field ecologists plays a central role in much of my current work.
About this website
This website provides an overview of my research, publications, and collaborative projects. It is intended as a resource for colleagues, students, beekeepers, and anyone interested in applied pollinator science. For detailed project descriptions, visit the research page. For a full academic overview, see my curriculum vitae, and for my scientific output, visit publications.
Related research and beekeeping activities
- Associate Editor at the “Journal of Applied Entomology”
- Member of the „International Commission for Plant-Pollinator Relationships (ICP-PR)“
- Member of the „Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes (COLOSS)“ network
- Project monitor for research programs of the European Commission
- OECD peer reviewer for ecotoxicity testing