Welcome
As this edition of Buzzword goes to print, I am still marvelling at what an amazing year it has been for our bumblebee friends, especially the Early and Tree The Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s bumblebees (Bombus pratorum and B. hypnorum). You can learn more about this, members’ newsletter and the results of our 2014 BeeWalk survey in Dr. Richard Comont’s article on Nov 2014 — Issue 26 page 4. On page 14, Conservation Officer Sinead Lynch writes about her busy summer in Wales in pursuit of the illusive Shrill carder bee, Bombus sylvarum, and on page 8 we are delighted to have an article from Dr Catherine Jones about why the Tree bumblebee is proving to be so successful. Catherine was one of our guest speakers at this summer’s Members’ Day which took place in the grounds of Escrick Hall. It was a truly glorious sunny day attended by some 70 of our members, and we were blessed with sightings of so many bees, including Red- tailed and Gypsy cuckoo bees (Bombus rupestris and Bombus bohemicus).
I hope you enjoy this edition of Buzzword and you are able to join us at our next Members’ Day. Lucy Rothstein, CEO
Who we are: The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is Lucy Rothstein Gill Perkins a registered charity Chief Executive Conservation Manager (England & Wales 1115634, Lee Deane Dr Richard Comont Data Monitoring Officer Scotland SC042830). Development Manager We are grateful to the Dawn Ewing Aoife O’Rourke following organisations Outreach Manager Conservation Officer for their support: Anthony McCluskey (SW England) Outreach Officer Sam Page Jen McLean Conservation Officer Administrator (East England) Claire Wales Sinead Lynch Support Services Conservation Officer Darryl Cox (Wales) Information Officer Katy Malone Caroline Cleland Conservation Officer With the support of Fundraiser (Scotland) The Redwing Trust Rosemary Free Communications Officer
Cover picture : Garden bumblebee, Bombus hortorum, feeding on Dicentra. By Emma Seward. bumblebeeconservation.org Issue 26— bumblebeeconservation.org What's new? 2014, a good year for early bees Anthony McCluskey introduces BBCT’s Volunteer Vision and looks By Dr. Richard Comont, Data Monitoring Officer forward to new projects that have volunteers at their core. Understanding bumblebee population trends is vital for our work. BBCT has been lucky enough to have presence throughout the UK, and bring Long-term distribution records collected by the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording had wonderful support from its the message of the plight of the th volunteers from day one. Our small but bumblebee to more communities. Society (BWARS) show that two species became extinct in Britain during the 20 hard-working team of staff can only do century, and many others declined steeply during the same period. so much, and the contribution made by Indeed, many of the stories in this edition However, distribution records based largely on casual sightings can only tell us so our volunteers has helped us do a lot of Buzzword would not have been much. The lack of records of a species could be because the species actually more than we could have otherwise. possible without volunteers; Richard’s article about the success of early wasn’t there, or it might just be that no-one was looking for it there that year. For As we look forward to working on new bumblebees and Sinead’s Shrill carder this reason, distribution records sometimes only tell us when it is too late; it is far projects, it’s great to see that all of them week are excellent examples of the ways better to monitor abundance and pick out declines, before an extinction. have a large volunteering element in that volunteers can help us. That is what prompted BBCT to set up a standardised, long-term, bumblebee them. To help guide these projects, we abundance-monitoring scheme, BeeWalk. This is have worked with some of our volunteers If you’d like to learn more about based on the established methodology of the Butterfly to create a Volunteer Vision. This Vision volunteering with BBCT and read the Monitoring Scheme run by the Biological Records reaffirms our commitment to our Volunteer Vision, please visit Centre and Butterfly Conservation, and involves volunteers, and helps our new projects bumblebeeconservation.org/ volunteers walking a set monthly transect route from by considering what types of volunteering or write to us for more March to October. The BeeWalkers identify each volunteering opportunities we’d like to information using the address below. bumblebee they see (where possible) and count how offer, and what we will need to do to It is exciting to see so much interest in many of each species they see in each habitat they support each volunteer on their journey bees lately, along with developments in walk through, submitting the data online via our of volunteering with us. the National Pollinator Strategies of website, www.beewalk.org.uk. To help our volunteers, In coming years, we hope to do a lot England and Wales. The Bumblebee BBCT runs bumblebee identification training courses Early bumblebee worker more work with local community groups Conservation Trust will continue its work for BeeWalk volunteers across the country – it is really and provide more training for both new to help the bumblebees, and we hope important that the records are as accurate as possible. and advanced volunteers. With their that you’ll be with us! This year we have had more BeeWalkers than ever, and there are currently more help, we hope to have a greater than 330 transects and volunteers feeding data into the BeeWalk scheme, from Falmouth in the south to Stornoway in the north. The information collected by Get in touch: BeeWalk volunteers is integral to monitoring how bumblebee populations change through time, and will allow us to detect early warning signs of population declines. Post Bumblebee Conservation Trust All data collected will contribute to important long-term monitoring of bumblebee School of Natural Sciences population changes in response to changes in land-use and climate change and, University of Stirling ultimately, to informing how we manage the countryside. Stirling FK9 4LA
Phone 01786 466 897 At the time of writing, more than 26,000 individual bumblebees have been recorded this year and the data is already proving interesting. It was noticeable Male Forest cuckoo bee, Email [email protected] how much earlier the bumblebee season started in 2014 – on average, the seven Bombus sylvestris by Anthony [email protected] commonest bumblebee species were seen 33 days earlier than they were in 2013. McCluskey. [email protected] bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 Consequently, the big winners were the spring bumblebees, particularly the Early bumblebee, Bombus pratorum and the Tree bumblebee, Bombus hypnorum. Both One of the oldest and rarest species were massively abundant during the warm period April - June, bouncing back well from the cold and wet springs of 2012 and 2013. Almost twice as many bumblebees rediscovered individuals of each species were seen per transect this year compared to 2013! The By Dr Paul Williams, Natural History Museum London Tree bumblebee was also seen on transects in Scotland for the first time this year – a big spread northwards from 2013, the first year when it reached Scotland. Current research on high mountain bumblebees has highlighted the bumblebee, Bombus BeeWalk is an ongoing project and we welcome anyone who wants to get involved, superbus, as a candidate for one of the oldest but we recognise that not everyone has the time to walk a transect every month. surviving and least-known bumblebee species on That is why we partnered with Aberdeen University to run BeeWatch (http://bit.ly/ Earth. Mystery surrounds where it lives in the vast beewatch), where you can upload photographs of bees along with their locations. empty northern region of the Tibetan plateau. This This gives us distribution data (more than 10,000 records so far, 3,700 in 2014 is an area one third the size of Europe, where alone) and helps users to improve their bumblebee identification skills - when you Tanggula mountains of central Tibet visitors can face both frostbite and sunburn on the (photo: Z.-Y. Miao). upload a photo, there is a picture key and questions to help you identify the species, same day. e.g. ‘What colour was the tail?’. Every photo is checked by an expert, so you get feedback on what your species was, what features made it that species and, if The first known individual of B. superbus was probably collected on the north applicable, how it differs from the species you thought it was. Even if you have no Tibetan plateau at the end of the nineteenth century by one of the Russian photos of your own to upload, you can go through the same process and get your explorers, Vladimir Roborovsky or Pyotr Kozlov. It wasn’t until a century later, in eye in with other people’s photos in our Training Tool on the same website. 1990, that a Chinese expedition found just four more of these bees. Since then there have been many thousands of individual bumblebees identified from Tibet, Ultimately, bumblebee conservation depends of having the data to spot declines, to including more alpine species than all of the bumblebee species of the USA and pick out increases, and to examine the influence of conservation measures. This Canada combined. But no other B. superbus were found. data comes from volunteers so please join us - the more the merrier! Then in the summer of 2014, the scientist Zhengying Miao visited Lhasa, working as part of a project to document the bumblebees of China. China has nearly half of the world’s bumblebee species, although until recently they had not been systematically surveyed or mapped, and the true diversity was masked by the enormous variability of many species. Near the centre of the Tibetan plateau, at an elevation of over 5200m in the Tanggula mountains, he stopped near a stream with a patch of green and a few flowers. There, feeding on white gentians, he found what are now the first individuals of the elusive B. superbus for Bombus superbus which the habitat can be documented.
For all we know at present, B. superbus may occur widely across Tibet at higher elevations, where it might seem little affected by people. The landscape in this region is already semi-arid, with scattered bumblebee flowers near the more reliable streams. However, climate warming is now known to be causing the landscape to become even more arid. The IUCN Bumblebee Specialist Group is Blobbomaps of the month-by-month abundance of the Early bumblebee during March-August 2013 and working to assess the threats and needs of bumblebee conservation in even these 2014. Black dots are sightings on transects that month, yellow circles are scaled by the number of Early most remote corners of the world. For more information, visit iucn.org/bumblebees bumblebees seen on each transect, e.g. a larger circle means more bees. No yellow visible = 1 bee.
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BBCT’s first members’ day Success against the odds? By Lee Deane, Development Manager By Dr. Catherine M. Jones
The results of our 2013 annual membership Regular Buzzword readers will know that the Tree bumblebee, Bombus survey highlighted that our members were hypnorum, was first recorded in England in 2001. Since then it has interested in attending a Members’ Day – so successfully expanded its range across the UK, at a time when many this year we held our first ever members-only other bumblebee species are in decline. In this article Dr Catherine event. The purpose of the day was threefold: Jones tells us about her recent research that highlights one reason why to thank everyone for their help and support; Tree bumblebees might be so successful. to inform our members about current The study in question looked at Sphaerularia bombi, a nematode worm that infects bumblebee research and our future plans; and hibernating bumblebee queens, castrates them and prevents them from producing to provide bumblebee and wildflower Members enjoying a Bee walk. Photo: any offspring. This parasite also alters the behaviour of infected queens so that, identification training. Claire Wales instead of starting a colony when they emerge from hibernation in spring, they The bees were out and the sun was shining so we were able to make the most of deposit nematode larvae at bumblebee hibernation sites, where the nematodes the beautiful venue, Skipwith Hall in Escrick Park near Selby. The morning session infect the next generation of hibernating bumblebee queens. was filled with guest talks which proved to be a great hit (when you can get a room As the nematode parasite reduces the number of colonies started by bumblebee full of people to laugh about bumblebee faeces, you have a great presenter). queens in spring, we were interested in whether it infected more (or fewer) native Bumblebee and plant identification workshops were held in the afternoon, following bumblebee queens than non-native Tree bumblebee queens. We collected queens a lovely picnic lunch in the gardens. The feedback for the event has been of the Tree bumblebee and another five native bumblebee species, and checked exceptionally positive and both attendees and hosts enjoyed a wonderful day. their faeces for parasites. We also kept queens of some of the species in the lab to Based on this success, we plan to add more Members’ Days to our annual investigate how many were able to produce colonies and, after they died, dissected calendar of events, including our AGM this year which will be held at the Royal them to check for parasites. Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, with talks by guest speaker Simon Barnes and BBCT As shown in the graph below, we found that more Tree bumblebee queens were staff. For more information see page 12 of this edition of Buzzword. infected with Sphaerularia bombi, than all of the native bumblebee species. Trustee Vacancy 35% The Bumblebee Conservation Trust seeks to appoint a new Trustee who is 30% financially minded and has a background in accountancy (or similar). 25% Your role will be to ensure that the Trust’s finances are used and managed appropriately and in accordance with our aims and objectives. As a member of the 20%
Trust’s Finance Sub-Committee (which reports directly to the Board of Trustees) 15% you will help monitor the Trust’s financial matters and report to the Board about BBCT's financial health in line with best practice and legal requirements. Full 10% details about the post, including a list of duties and a person specification, as well 5% as how to apply can be found on our website: bumblebeeconservation.org/news/vacancies/ 0% Tree Buff-tailed White-tailed Early Common Heath bumblebee bumblebee bumblebee bumblebee carder bee bumblebee To discuss this role please contact Lucy Rothstein, CEO Graph showing the percentage of bumblebee queens that were infected with the nematode parasite, Email - [email protected] Sphaerularia bombi. Photo: Dr Michael Kelly. Tel - 02380 640 260 bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 Surprisingly, we also found that some infected Tree bumblebee queens were able to produce offspring in the lab, so they were apparently not castrated by the parasite. From the forum Indeed, about 29% of infected Tree bumblebee queens went on to produce Some highlights from our discussion forum offspring. Rosie T posted the picture on the right with the Tree bumblebee queens have high levels of a nematode parasite, but the Tree following question: is this a bumblebee or indeed a bee bumblebee has still successfully expanded its range across the UK. So why are at all? A frequent visitor to her garden this August, she Tree bumblebees so successful? Perhaps this is because they are associated with described it as being more hornet like, but wasn’t sure the urban environment, nesting in bird boxes and roof cavities, and they forage from exactly what it was. a wide range of flowers in urban gardens. Maybe it is because, in good years, they are bivoltine, i.e. are able to produce two colonies in one year. Or maybe it is Urbanbumble was on the mark with the identification, because the Tree bumblebee is somewhat resistant to the nematode parasite. Volucella zonaria, also known as the Hornet hoverfly. This is the UK’s largest hoverfly and is pretty distinctive Importantly, the Tree bumblebee may with its hornet-like stripes. Adult females are brave Hornet hoverfly. Photo by reduce the impact of this parasite on enough to lay their eggs in social wasps’ nests built into urbanbumble native queens. Firstly, the Tree tree cavities. Their larvae are scavengers that feed bumblebee provides an alternative host upon the detritus at the base of the nest. Hornet hoverflies first appeared on for the parasite, and therefore some these shores in the 1930’s and are now widespread throughout southern parasites will infect hibernating Tree England. bumblebee queens and some will infect hibernating native bumblebee queens. There are a large number of bumblebee mimics out Secondly, as some infected Tree there too. One of the most convincing is a hoverfly of bumblebee queens are able to start a the same genus, Volucella bombylans (the clue is in colony, the nematode parasite has not the name). Pictured right is the Red-tailed ‘morph’ of V. altered the behaviour of these queens, bombylans which resembles the Red-tailed bumblebee, and they will not deposit nematode A Tree bumblebee queen. Photo by Sam Ginger Bombus lapidarius. This species also has another form larvae at hibernation sites. This is likely that has a white tail and yellow bands, closely to reduce the number of nematode parasite larvae at hibernation sites to infect the resembling some bumblebees with similar patterns. next generation of both native and non-native hibernating queens. Volucella bombylans. Photo The larvae of these hoverflies are one of the various by Steven Falk. insect species which live amongst the debris of Although a new bumblebee species may compete with our native species for food bumblebee nests, feeding upon the detritus. and nesting sites, the benefits of a new pollinator, to pollinate our crops and wildflowers, - and the exciting possibility that Tree bumblebees may limit parasite With all these convincing hoverfly mimics around we’ve put together some reproduction - are probably more important. advice to help tell the difference between them and real bumblebees.
The good news is that the Tree bumblebee is an additional pollinator to bolster our 1.How many wings does it have? Bees have four wings, but flies are part of the declining bumblebee populations – AND it may reduce parasite pressure on our group ‘Diptera’, meaning two-winged. If it only has one pair of wings, it’s a fly. native bumblebees. 2.What are the antennae like? Bumblebees have long, slender, segmented If you would like to find out more about my research, please read my paper: antennae while hoverflies have much shorter stub like antennae, which can ‘Parasites and genetic diversity in an invasive bumblebee’ by Catherine M. sometimes be quite hairy. Jones and Mark J.F. Brown published in 2014 in the Journal of Animal Ecology 3.What are the eyes like? Flies eyes are usually large and occupy the majority of the head whereas bumblebees’ eyes are smaller and more proportionately spaced on their faces.
bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 Shop! Use this form to order any merchandise Christmas ideas or gifts. For membership, please use the special insert included with this edition. We are lucky enough to have a group of talented and creative folk Item Quantity
who love to make beautiful gifts and who are generous enough to What’s that bumblebee? £ 2.50 □ Your details: donate to BBCT. We have a dedicated page on our website to Title and name: highlight some of the very unique gifts that have the added benefit of supporting our work. There will be an amazing range of gift Making space for bumblebees £ 3.00 □ ideas: clothes and toys for children, beautiful candles for homes, Address: Wildflower border mix £ 1.00 jewellery, mugs, bumblebee prints and other great ideas. □
Please visit bumblebeeconservation.org/christmas to see the Great yellow pin badge £ 1.50 □ range. Postcode: Blaeberry pin badge £ 1.50 □ Email: Alternatively, you may wish to buy some of our individual Shrill carder pin badge £ 1.50 □ Telephone: items as listed below. A bumblebee badge makes a White-tailed pin badge £ 1.50 □ Please return your completed form to: great stocking stuffer! Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Gardening poster £ 1.00 □ University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA
UK Bumblebees poster £ 1.00 □ Please make cheques payable to ‘Bumblebee Conservation Trust’. We can also Total: take credit/debit card payments online.
What’s that bumblebee? Notice of the 8th Annual General Meeting and Members’ Event Our bumblebee field ID guide, with photos of each species to help with Notice is hereby given that the 8th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the identification in the field….£2.50 Bumblebee Conservation Trust will be held on Saturday 29 November 2014 at Posters the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. We offer three types of posters: ID poster showing all 24 UK bumblebee For full details of the agenda, resolutions and instructions for how to vote please visit species; Gardening poster packed full of planting suggestions, and a our website at bumblebeeconservation.org/agm, email bright and beautiful kid’s poster perfect for a bedroom wall...£1 [email protected] or call 01786 466 897.
Bumblebee pin badge We will be holding a Members’ Event at the same time as our AGM and would be delighted if our members could join us. The programme will consist of the AGM Our beautiful enamel bumblebee badges are available in one of four followed by a series of staff talks, as well as keynote presentations by the multi- varieties: Shrill carder, Great yellow, Blaeberry and the White-tailed award-winning journalist Simon Barnes and the RBGE’s Director of Science, bumblebee...£1.50 Professor Pete Hollingsworth. Making space for bumblebees Places are limited so please go to our website to book , email Our guide to gardening for bumblebees at home and in your community. [email protected] or call 01786 466 897. It is packed full of bee-friendly gardening suggestions to keep your garden blooming and buzzing...£3
bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 What’s the Buzz? What’s the buzz in Wales? Tell us what you think! By Sinead Lynch, Conservation Officer (Wales)
2014 has been a busy and fantastically productive year for bumblebees in Wales, Dear BBCT, I wanted to tell you that I saw three new Early bumblebee, Bombus thanks partly to the warm sunny weather. One task I’ve had is to revisit sites where pratorum, queen bees on my allotment in Manchester, on Tuesday 12th August. I landowners have been undertaking habitat management for bumblebees. I’ve usually don’t see them so late in the year - are they likely to make nests of their revisited 16 sites and the best thing about these return visits is seeing positive own this year or go into hibernation? change for bumblebees. This is particularly noticeable on the sites where wildflower seed has been sown; seed, that in many cases, was provided by Bumblebee Some species of bumblebee have quick lifecycles, and can complete the whole Conservation Trust. It has been wonderful to see so many colourful, flower rich thing in just a couple of months. This allows some species, such as the Early grasslands spring up and provide much needed sustenance for our bumblebees! In bumblebee, to have more than one generation per year, with new queens leaving the last three years BBCT has worked with over 50 landowners in Wales, and helped their nests and setting up new nests instead of going into hibernation. This is to deliver thousands of hectares of habitat. normally found in the warmer, southern parts of the UK. Last year we had BeeWalk records for Early bumblebee queens and males this late on as far north My site visits have ranged from coastal meadows as Northumberland and southern Scotland, and although we won’t know the full and heath on windy cliff tops, at the most far flung picture from this year until all the records are collected, we do expect to see peninsulas in Pembrokeshire, to scruffy forgotten double broods further north than usual this year. This is because we had an early, corners under the bellowing towers of industrial warm spring meaning that bumblebee queens emerged a lot earlier than usual Port Talbot. But don’t be fooled, some of those and the first nest cycles finished earlier too. Because the warm weather has industrial ‘brownfield’ sites can be beautiful, in persisted and we have had some of the mildest weather on record, many their way. It’s amazing to see what life has bumblebees further north have been able to start new colonies within the same sprung from the ashes of industrial processes – year. including Bee Orchids and the rare Small blue butterfly. Dear BBCT, I took this photo of two bumblebees mating, but they’re clearly from different There have been surprises and terrors along the species. Can bumblebees hybridise? way. At Port Talbot docks a fox ran out from under my feet, and at one site in Pembrokeshire I We often get sent photos of strange couplings like this, had a close encounter with a herd of Welsh Black where different species appear to be mating (or at least cattle. But the greatest surprise was finding out trying to!). The most likely scenario is that the male has what lurks in the undergrowth after decades of gotten confused and found a queen which happens to be of encroaching bramble scrub has been cleared – A brownfield site rich in wildflowers— a different species. In most UK bumblebees, the males and apparently the answer to that question is a perfect for bees search for queens to mate with by detecting ‘scent’ with Ford Escort Mark III! their antennae, and sight isn’t used very much. Some of the species scents may be similar, which is why we sometimes A highlight of my summer was the Shrill carder bee events that we held in find interspecies mating happening. There isn’t any record of hybridisation Pembrokeshire in August. On Monday 11 August we held a bumblebee identification between species in the UK, but some research in Japan found that up to 20% of training workshop at Foundry House in Pembroke. The following day, we held a the native Bombus hypocrita queens they sampled had sperm from the non- ‘Shrill carder bee survey day’, which involved 30 volunteers, split into groups, who native Bombus terrestris in their bodies. This may happen because B. terrestris is closely related to B. hypocrita, but not normally found in Japan (it arrived through visited various sites across the Castlemartin Peninsula in Pembrokeshire to look for importation of bumblebees) and so the two species haven’t evolved natural the Shrill carder bee. barriers to mating as other closely related species have.
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The event went really well and we collected lots of bumblebee records. A Buzz in the Meadow Most importantly, lots of volunteers The new book by BBCT founder, Professor Dave Goulson have reported that they feel more confident with their bumblebee “5 stars, a delicious revelation” The Telegraph identification. “A gripping account of the importance of insects to our environment” Financial Times During the day we found three Shrill “Required reading for being a human in the 21st century” New Scientist carder bees, including one from a “Delightful” The Times ‘new’ site where it had not been recorded before – the National In A Buzz in the Meadow, BBCT’s founder Dave Goulson Trust’s ‘Gupton Farm’. We even tells the story of how he bought a derelict farm in the heart managed to catch the bee on With the volunteers during the Shrill carder bee day. of rural France, together with 33 acres of surrounding camera for ITV Wales News! The Photo by Julie Garlick. meadow and how, over a decade, he has created a place following day, one of the volunteers for his beloved bumblebees to thrive. But other creatures visited a site in the north of the peninsula near the Valero refinery, and found four live there too, myriad insects of every kind, many of them Shrill carder bees - another new site. And just a week before, myself and a ones that Goulson has studied before in his career as a Conservation Officer from the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales found a biologist. You will learn about how a deathwatch beetle number of Shrill carder bees at Dow Corning’s Cadoxton Ponds site in Barry. So finds its mate, about the importance of houseflies, why that’s three new sites for Shrill carder bee found this year in Wales – good things butterflies have spots on their wings, about dragonfly sex, do come in threes! bed-bugs and wasps. Goulson is brilliant, and very funny, Since the buzz (sorry) of the summer months, I’ve segued into another busy period at showing how scientists actually conduct experiments. of planning new projects for the future - there are many exciting opportunities in the The book is also a wake-up call, urging us to cherish and protect life on earth in all pipeline. Firstly, we have been working on proposals to help support volunteers its forms. Goulson has that rare ability to persuade you to go out into your garden and BeeWalkers in Wales and develop a community green space project. One of or local park and get down on your hands and knees and look. The undiscovered the vital parts of this project will be to help and encourage more people to take up a glory that is life in all its forms on planet Earth is there to be discovered. And if we BeeWalk transect in their local patch. The data we receive from BeeWalk is so learn to value what we have, perhaps we will find a way to keep it. important, and it helps us to understand a lot more about what is happening with bumblebees in the UK. The project will hopefully allow us to set up local networks A Sting in the Tale, Dave Goulson’s account of a lifetime studying bumblebees, for volunteers and thus provide more training and support. was one of the most gratifying success stories of 2013. Brilliantly reviewed, it was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for the best non-fiction book of the We are also partnering with Buglife in Wales on an exciting project proposal called year. A Buzz in the Meadow is another call to arms for nature lovers everywhere. South Wales B-Lines. This project will aim to map habitat across south Wales – mapping the best flower-rich sites, and finding opportunities to link them up. The Special BBCT members offer! result will be a series of flower-rich ‘B-Lines’ throughout the countryside. We’ve teamed up with the publishers to give BBCT members a special discount on So, as the last of the bumblebees are finishing for the summer, and this year’s new A Buzz in the Meadow. Readers can buy it for the special price of £13.99 (RRP queens hunker down in their hibernation sites, I’ll be busy writing up management £16.99), including free UK and N. Ireland p&p. reports and working on project proposals. Sowing the seeds - literally and metaphorically - ready for when those precious queens emerge in the spring to To order, please call 01206 255 800 and quote reference ‘Bumblebee’ . start the cycle again.
bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 Local authorities and bees By Rosemary Free, Communications Officer
Last year we published our guide ‘Bumblebees and Local Authorities’ to help people to approach their councils to ask them to adopt practises to benefit biodiversity. To follow this up we recently surveyed 172 councils in England, Scotland and Wales to find out what strategies they have in place to help pollinating insects such as bees, butterflies and hoverflies.
Of the 70 councils that responded, nearly 63% had introduced strategies: from the management of cutting regimes and grass verges to planting schemes with wildflowers or cultivated plants. Strategies like this have been shown to be of great benefit to bees and other wildlife, and 41% of those who had made changes claimed they had saved money by reducing spending on grass cutting, bedding plants, water and fertilisers.
Staff at Herefordshire Council estimated they would save up to £300,000 after halving their grass cutting operations, replacing bedding plants with perennials and introducing more community self-management. This was echoed by Peterborough City Council who said that the introduction of nine biodiversity areas which are Bumblebee Books New and Old cut once a year, plus the reduction in the cutting Ash View, Tump Lane, Much Birch, Hereford, HR2 8HP. Tel: 01981 540907 frequency across all other open spaces, would Write for a copy of our bee book list. In stock are:- A wildflower meadow in Midlothian save the council around £136,000 a year. While some stated that they had incurred extra costs in (photo from Midlothian Council) planting wildflower meadows or buying specialist Alford. Bumblebees 1st edition (scarce). £250.00 machinery, they hoped to save money in the future through reduced management. Benton. Bumblebees. NN98. o/p. Money was listed as the most significant challenge in introducing pollinator-friendly £50.00 strategies. However, some councils said many of these projects had evolved in Goulson. A Sting in the Tail. Pb £8.99 response to funding cuts for bedding plants and grounds management. Several Kearns & Thompson. Bumblebees. Pb. local authorities listed public opinion as an obstacle but overall our survey found 2001 £17.50 that more than 61% of councils with pollinator-friendly strategies in place had Poster with 22 Edwards & Jenner. Field Guide to experienced a positive response from local people. A further 28% said they had bumblebee Bumblebees. £12.99 had a mixed response with some reporting that, while in general people liked species. wildflowers, they complained about long grass. 23.75’’ x Visa/ Mastercard welcome. 15.5’’ in card- Understanding the challenges and successes in implementing schemes to benefit board tube. Other titles to order. bees will allow us to work more effectively with councils in future. The ‘Bumblebees www.honeyshop.co.uk and Local Authorities’ pack is available as a download from our website, or by writing to us at the address in the front cover of Buzzword. bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26 bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 26