Norman Carreck has been keeping bees since the age of 15. He studied Agricultural Science at Nottingham University and has worked as an official beekeeper, with responsibility for maintaining about 80 colonies of honey bees, while also researching pollination ecology, bee behaviour, bee pathology and forage for bees. Since 2008 he has carried out research at the University of Sussex on bee breeding and pesticides and bees, worked as Senior Editor of the Journal of Apicultural Research and been employed as Science Director of the International Bee Research Association. He has a National Diploma in Beekeeping and is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and of the Royal Society of Biology. He is a member of the Bee Health Advisory Forum for the DEFRA ’Healthy Bees Plan’ and is the UK member of the Executive Committee of the international honey bee research network, COLOSS.