Robert Brodschneider, Institute of Biology, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
Title: The continuing history of Bee World - the bee research journal founded by Abushâdy
Abstract: Ahmed Zaki Abushâdy was a passionate beekeeper, inventor of innovations in beekeeping and publisher of honey bee research. During his time in the United Kingdom, Abushâdy did not only found a beekeeping club (the ‘Apis club’, Apis is the taxonomic genus of the honey bees), but also the journal The Bee World, the official organ of the Apis club. These two foundations, and the patent of an aluminum honeycomb saw the light in 1919, a seminal year for his bee career. As he states in the first editorial, ‘this periodical […] has no smaller function in aiming at the exposition of the best gifts of other people to the Science and Practice of Bee Culture.’ The journal contained different article sections, similar to recent journals, including editorial, original contributions, book reviews, press mirror, the arena (letters to the editor), and even bee news and gossip. Abushâdy himself edited the journal until 1926.
Twenty years later, Eva Crane, a renowned editor, writer, and researcher on the honey bee and beekeeping turned the journal into a well-known scientific magazine. Publication of the journal was taken over by the (International) Bee Research Association. The journal was almost continuously published since then and celebrated its centenary in 2019. Due to a short hiatus in publication, volume 100 of the journal is only published in 2023. The journal nowadays is published by the Taylor & Francis Group. Four issues are published a year, and the journal is up to date regarding the editorial and publishing processes. Authors from all over the world share their original research, review articles or other material on the honey bee and beekeeping in the journal. All articles published since 1919 are available online, including about 20 articles (mostly announcements, editorials, or technical texts) written or co-written by Abushâdy. Altogether, more than 6,700 articles published in the last 104 years are available electronically.
Bio: Dr. Robert Brodschneider is a biologist working as a researcher at the University of Graz. In his master and Phd studies he already focused on honey bees, which are since then in the focus of his research. He does research on the behavior, physiology and health of honey bees. Since 2008 he is monitoring honey bee colony losses in Austria for identification of risk factors. Since 2014 he is coordinating the COLOSS core project “monitoring of honey bee colony losses,” which collects honey bee colony mortality data from more than 30 countries. Robert has great interest in including beekeepers as citizen scientists in his research. During his career he was involved in five European Union funded projects and several national research projects. He published 50 scientific articles (h-index = 20) which were cited more than 2300 times. in addition to the University of Graz, he also teaches apiculture in Vienna, at the University of Life Sciences and the Veterinarian University. Since 2018, he is the ninth academic editor in history of the journal Bee World.