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Mike Brown is the Head of the National Bee Unit of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DFRA) at the Central Science Laboratory (CSL) in the United Kingdom.
Mike’s initial background and training is commercial beekeeping. Before joining the Central Science Laboratory (CSL) National Bee Unit (NBU) he worked in commercial beekeeping in France, Tunisia and California. In France he worked for one of the largest French bee businesses, Famille Mary, who run over 2,000 colonies for honey, royal jelly and pollen production and specialise in sales of a wide range of apiculture products (including 30 different types of honey) by mail order. In Tunisia he worked on a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) project looking at various varroa control options including essential oils (his first contact with the varroa mite). In the USA he helped manage a queen-rearing business in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California for a number of years.
In 1988 Mike joined the National Bee Unit, and was responsible for laboratory diagnostics, apiary management and commercial work, moving to managing the field advisory and inspection service from 1993- 2002. He became Head of the integrated NBU in April 2003 with responsibility for management of the bee health programmes in England and Wales on behalf of UK governments (Defra and the Welsh Assembly) comprising:
• General apiculture and colony management: bee diseases, their diagnosis, recognition and control
• Training and extension programmes
• Regulatory affairs and import risk analysis, technical support to Policy
• Supporting research and development of the bee health programme.
