by Jack Reid, Outreach and Volunteering Officer at Bumblebee Conservation Trust
So, you kidnapped a bumblebee…
Each year, the Trust receives dozens of e-mails and phone calls from well-intentioned beenappers who have been out and about and found a tired-looking lone bumblebee that they’ve rescued and taken home with them to care for. In case you’ve been considering the practicalities of taking a bumblebee home, we have written up this useful guide to caring for your new friend, without taking it home! Read More
by Dr. Cathy Horsley, Senior Project Officer for the West Country Buzz project
Braunton Burrows in North Devon is four square miles of spectacular sand dunes, and home to a rich variety of plant and animal life. It is extremely important for bumblebees and holds Devon’s last remaining large population of the nationally declining Section 41 Priority species, the Brown-banded carder bee (Bombus humilis). Elsewhere in the county, it is known only from scattered records at a handful of sites around North Devon.
by Sinead Lynch, Senior Conservation Officer for Bumblebee Conservation Trust
At Bumblebee Conservation Trust we are particularly interested in methods of farming which provide habitats which are rich in flowers for bumblebees to forage on. There is an increasing movement in the farming industry towards sustainable and regenerative agriculture. Such low input and low cost methods make a farm business more resilient, and taking care of your most important resources on-farm – soil, habitats, water – makes the land more resilient to change (e.g. extreme weather such as drought). These low input methods also help to restore flower-rich habitats such as grasslands. Read More
by Ro Green.
Last summer I found myself on the Bumblebee Conservation Trust website, looking at the map of project sites and thinking “I bet I could cycle to all of those”. I’d never cycled for more than a day at a time. A year later I set out to join these places by pedal power over the course of a month. This cycle tour came at the end of three years spent studying Biology at Oxford University, and it was incredible to see how the science I’d spent years learning about was put into practice by the Trust. Read More
by Katy Malone, Bumblebee Conservation Trust Conservation Officer for Scotland
Being a fully paid-up member of the bumblebee fan club, no-one will be surprised to learn that when I finally got offered an allotment in my village three years ago, I set out to make it as bee-friendly as possible. After all, growing veg and attracting crop pollinators with nectar and pollen-rich flowers – well, it’s just a no-brainer. Read More
