Thomas Nottidge

Bumblebee letters

Hello everyone

Well I had quite an exciting week last week. On Wednesday I went to the Northamptonshire Record office to meet with William Miller who is the great, great nephew of Thomas Nottidge who collaborated with the New Zealand acclimatisation society to send over the bumblebees! It was fantastic to see all the original correspondence and in such good condition. I learnt an awful lot of how they sent the bees, the mistakes and the successes. When the bumblebees were released after the successful voyage they went straight to the red clover pasture fields and started to feed. Apparently the reintroduction was such a success that the next year they were found all over the South Island and had even spread themselves onto the North Island. The farmers were incredibility grateful to the society for introducing the bumblebees, so much so that the agricultural society even paid Nottidge the money is was owed from the introduction. So a huge thank you to William for getting in touch with the project and inviting me to come and have a look!

So this morning I booked my flights over to New Zealand to return the short haired bumblebee back to the UK. I'm heading over on the 15th and arrive on the 17th November where I will go straight down to subt country and fingers crossed start finding my queens! The queens will then be taken to Plant and Food in Christchurch where they will breed them! Its a very exciting time and watch this space for all the details of the trip.........