Bumblebee blog
Here you will find informal updates on our projects, top tips from our staff and volunteers on how to support bumblebees and interesting guest articles from our partners. Use the category buttons to filter the blog articles by topic.
by Eliza S.
Work Experience Student for 1 week in July 2019
I spent my work experience week in the Bumblebee Conservation Trust office in Eastleigh. I had a brilliant time discovering more about bumblebees, the trust and the different jobs in conservation. It has been a wonderful opportunity for me and a week well-spent.
by Darryl Cox, Senior Science & Policy Officer.
Bumblebees of the world would not be complete without delving into the darker side of bumblebee life, and so this month features one of around thirty described parasitic cuckoo bumblebees, the Red-tailed cuckoo (Bombus rupestris).
by Paul Williams, Researcher at the Natural History Museum, London, and Darryl Cox, Senior Science & Policy Officer.
This month, Bumblebees of the world returns from across the Atlantic to feature Cullum’s bumblebee (Bombus cullumanus), a Eurasian species which is sadly no longer found in the UK and has experienced drastic declines across the rest of Western Europe.
by Jasmine Bennett from the Pickwell Foundation.
The Pickwell Foundation, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and the North Devon National Trust came together to facilitate the sowing of wildflower seeds on Easter Saturday.
With over 80 residents turning up to help between the two sites, participants learnt about the importance of wild bees, how they differentiate from honey bees, and about the issues faced by our wonderful wild pollinators.
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Bex Cartwright, our Making a Buzz for the Coast Conservation Officer, has written this handy guide on how to create or choose a suitable bee box to make a perfect home for solitary bees in your garden! Read More
At the start of January delegates from across the food and farming sectors converged at the 10th annual Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) – a conference set up to champion sustainable farming, food production and land stewardship. Set up as an alternative to the Oxford Farming Conference, which has been running since 1936, the Oxford Real Farming Conference has soared in popularity since its inception in 2010. Read More
By Chloe Griffiths, a keen BeeWalker in west Wales who has worked with her local community to improve bumblebee recording data and local pollinator habitat.
By Elizabeth Franklin, Bumblebee Researcher, Guelph, Canada
This month's Bumblebees of the World blog is written by Bumblebee Researcher, Elizabeth Franklin, from the University of Guelph, who focuses on the plight of a critically endangered bumblebee in North America.
by Rosie Earwaker from Buglife, Back from the Brink’s Shrill Carder Bee Project Officer
Hints of spring are in the air. Bulbs are peeking up through the soil, with plenty of snowdrops, daffodils and crocus already in flower. Sightings of Buff-tailed bumblebees in gardens are more and more frequent as the days grow longer. It won’t be long now until different bumblebee species join them, although we will have to wait a couple more months until the high pitched buzz of our Shrill carder bee returns. It certainly won’t be a silent spring this year, but where will we be in 100 years’ time?