The Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s members’ newsletter March 2013 — Issue 21 bumblebeeconservation.org Welcome The Board of Trustees has appointed Lucy Rothstein as the new Chief Executive Officer of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Lucy commenced her new assignment on 1 March and is already making her mark for the Trust. The post of CEO was advertised widely and attracted nearly 50 applicants. Lucy joins us after a career including working for The Grasslands Trust, The Devon Wild- life Trust and the Tall Ships Youth Trust. She has also been a Trustee of Wildlife and Countryside Link. I greatly welcome her appointment and look forward to the leadership which she will undoubtedly bring to the conservation of the UK‘s bumble- bee fauna. The Trust has also recently welcomed Victoria Woods as our Finance Manager. Recent scientific articles have demonstrated the worldwide importance of wild in- sects for pollinating many food crops as well as wild flowers. This implies that the Trust has a considerable but worthwhile task ahead in fostering more habitats, with flowers rich in pollen and nectar, and hibernation sites, for the benefit of all of our bees. Michael B. Usher, Chair of BBCT’s Board of Trustees Who we are: The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is Lucy Rothstein Gill Perkins a registered charity Chief Executive Officer Conservation Manager (England & Wales 1115634, Victoria Woods Jo Chesworth Scotland SC042830). Finance Manager Senior Conservation We are grateful to the following organisations Officer Lee Deane for their support: Development Manager South West England Dawn Ewing Sam Page Outreach Manager Conservation Officer East England Anthony McCluskey Outreach Officer Sinead Lynch Conservation Officer Elaine O’Mahony Wales Surveys Officer Michelle Appleby Anne Marie Gardner Conservation Officer Administration Manager Scotland With the support of Darren Ross The Redwing Trust Administration Assistant Cover picture: Bombus dahlbomii, a bumblebee that is native to South America but is threatened by imports of European bumblebees. Top: Annabelle Tipper, Middle: Michelle Appleby, Bottom: BBCT Issue 21 — bumblebeeconservation.org What's new? Hello, and it‘s a pleasure to be writing my If you are interested in volunteering for first introduction to Buzzword. As the first us, then please contact our Stirling green shoots herald spring, everyone Office to request a copy of our new here is gearing up for another busy Volunteer Support Pack. This handy bumblebee season. My fingers are guide is full of hints and ideas on crossed that we get better weather this everything from hosting a bumblebee year! safari to swapping clothes to raise money! In this issue of Buzzword, you‗ll find lots of exciting ways to get involved with our I hope you enjoy reading this edition of work. In the coming months you could Buzzword and feel inspired to help. take part in a volunteer training day, join one of our popular bumblebee We are immensely grateful to all our identification courses, or help promote members and friends for the support what we do at shows and events around we have received which has enabled the UK. We are continually adding to the us to do so much to help protect our events section of our website so please bumblebees, and ultimately ―save the have a look to see what‗s on in your area. sound of summer‖. I look forward to This spring also sees the launch of our keeping you informed about our work first ever public fundraising appeal, called over the coming months. ―Feed the Bees‖. We have produced an With best engaging animated clip to draw attention wishes, to the plight of our bumblebees and help spread the word about supporting the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Please Lucy read on to find out more. Rothstein Get in touch: Post Bumblebee Conservation Trust School of Environmental Sciences University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA Phone 01786 467 818 Email [email protected] [email protected] Buff-tailed bumblebee, [email protected] Bombus terrestris bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 21 A day in the life... By Dr. Elaine O‘Mahony, Surveys Officer I live in Edinburgh so I start my day with a battle through traffic! Once beyond the city limits though the journey is quite pleasant, certainly Stirling and the surrounding countryside is beautiful with Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument looming majestically over the vast flat expanse of the Forth plain. Despite the distance between home and office, being based at the University of Stirling campus is no hardship with its lochs full of wildfowl, trees full of cheeky squirrels and the Ochill hills as a backdrop. As Surveys Officer, you might expect me to be endlessly roaming the landscape in search of bumblebees, but I am office-based most days. It is much more important that I support the great efforts of our surveyors around the country, who contribute to our two flagship surveys, BeeWalk and BeeWatch. As many of you will know, BeeWalk is a very important tool for monitoring the abundance of bumblebees on an annual basis. It involves volunteer surveyors establishing transects in their area, on which they survey bumblebees from March to October. I endeavour to keep up to date with BeeWalk correspondence, which often concerns data submissions, identification queries or mapping difficulties. The data submissions are greatest during the summer, but in the quiet of winter I have not been hibernating. I have conducted a review of BeeWalk to highlight areas we could improve upon and develop. A packed schedule of BeeWalk Training Days has been organised (see next page), the survey guidelines and forms have been overhauled and repackaged, new challenging online identification quizzes have been crafted and the first BeeWalk e-newsletter to herald the start of the 2013 season has been released. Our other survey, BeeWatch, is not only an important tool for monitoring bumblebee distribution. It is also an outreach tool to both enthuse and inform people about bumblebee identification. As one of the BeeWatch ‗experts‘, I go through photos that users have uploaded, verify the identification and give appropriate feedback. In the peak of summer I can spend two to three days per week on verification but I am getting quicker! And the A-team (Annie, Advaith and René based at the University of Aberdeen) are testing a new crowd-sourcing system where BeeWatch users also contribute to verification. Very exciting! bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 21 Occasionally, I am allowed out of the office for good behaviour! In January I took part in a workshop called ‗Monitoring Change‘ which was organised by the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology. At the meeting representatives of many voluntary-based recording schemes drafted an academic paper to outline how best to set-up such a scheme from scratch. This was useful in our review of BeeWalk and helped to identify some best practise processes that we can work towards. I will also be out and about a lot this spring and summer as I will be spending most of my time delivering BeeWalk training. BeeWalk Training Events BeeWalk was established in 2010 and is an important survey that monitors the abundance of bumblebees on an annual basis. We really need more people from around the country to take part. Our Conservation Officers, who work in the areas with the last populations of our rarest bumblebees, would particularly welcome volunteers to survey in the following areas: North and West Scotland North Kent South Essex Wiltshire and Somerset (particularly the Somerset levels and Salisbury Plain) To register your interest please email [email protected] Date Location If you haven‘t surveyed before and you‘re 21 Apr North East London not quite sure where to start, then please 05 May Leeds join us for a BeeWalk Training Day. These 11 May Bridgend free day-long workshops provide an introduction to bumblebee identification and 19 May Belfast guidance on establishing and surveying a 25 May Oxford BeeWalk transect. Places are limited to 15 to 20 participants and advance booking is 15 Jun Jedburgh essential. 16 Jun Glasgow Both new and current BeeWalkers are 22 Jun Edinburgh welcome. Please book your place by sending an email with the subject: 07 Jul Inverness 'Training Workshop - ' followed by the 27 Jul Sutherland or Caithness appropriate location to [email protected] Further details can be found in the events section of our website. bumblebeeconservation.org — Issue 21 You asked, we acted By Dawn Ewing, Outreach Manager At our volunteer training workshops last summer we collected a lot of feedback about the types of resources that would be useful to our volunteers. Over the winter we have been busy developing these ideas in consultation with a number of other parties. The result is a suite of new resources for our registered volunteers to use. Our new volunteer guides provide useful tips and guidance to help you support bumblebees in a variety of ways. The titles are: 1. Volunteer ideas and processes 2. How to plan and host a bumblebee themed exhibit 3. How to plan and deliver a Bumblebee Safari 4. Raising funds for bumblebee conservation We have also developed two guides for volunteers to distribute on our behalf. Local authority bee-friendly planting toolkit. This guide has two sections. The first provides useful tips to help you build support for bee-friendly planting in your local community and advises on ways to approach your local authority to maximise success. The second section is designed to be given to your local authority to help it take bee-friendly planting forward. It contains tips and case studies from other local authorities who have already changed their ways. Local authority wildflower planting Garden Centre pack. This pack is for you to give to your local garden centre manager to encourage greater promotion of bee-friendly gardening.