At the Trust we recognise the crucial role of nature-friendly farming to conserve bumblebee populations. Bumblebees and their habitats are also vital for a sustainable agricultural and food system.

From 19 – 25 May 2025 we are celebrating and supporting Nature-Friendly Farming Week. The theme this year is ‘More than Growing Food’. As well as growing food, farmers do so much more including protecting and enhancing habitats for wildlife, supporting local communities and providing opportunities for education.

A key objective in our new Trust strategy is that ‘More agricultural land is managed in bumblebee-friendly ways’. We have created our ‘Bringing the Buzz Back to Farming’ Agricultural Action Plan which outlines the key actions we need to take to deliver this objective. Below is a summary of our main aims.

We want to ensure the needs of bumblebees and other pollinators are considered in agricultural and food policies. We aim to achieve this though continuing our vital policy work, working with our bumblebee species champions and engaging in relevant consultations.

We will continue to work alongside farmers to deliver advice to encourage action for bumblebees on farmland. We will do this though our current and future conservation projects and our knowledgeable and experienced staff. We have a knowledgeable and experienced team. In the last 12 months, 11 members of our team have completed BASIS training in Principles of Sustainable Land Management with four team members achieving the advanced Certificate level.

We will support farmers and their advisors to develop a better understanding of what they need to do to benefit bumblebees on their land. We are excited to be developing resources and guidance that outline how bumblebees and farming can work together.

We will champion Nature-Friendly Farming by working with partners and in collaboration with others who are also championing and supporting nature-friendly farming and initiatives. Lastly, will take part in key agricultural events to promote and support nature-friendly farming. Look out for us this year at our stand at Groundswell from 2-3 July 2025.

Exciting news for farms and bumblebees

Earlier this year, our Conservation Projects Manager (South East) Dr Nikki Gammans became the first recipient of the LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) Caroline Drummond Scholarship for Innovation in Sustainability. This has enabled Nikki to continue work on developing this first bumblebee-focused farm cluster groups in the UK. The first of these will be based in the South-East. Find out more.

What can I do to support Nature-Friendly Farming?

Nature-Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) is a farmer-led organisation that champions and supports nature-friendly farmers. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust are on the NFFN advisory group. The network is also open for members of the public to join for free and register their support.

This year NFFN are asking members of the public to spread the word in the lead-up and during Nature-Friendly Farming Week and show their support for Nature-Friendly Farmers. To get involved: Like, share and comment across their social media channels. Look for and use the hashtag #NFFWeek2025

Are you a farmer? Find out what you can do to celebrate Nature-Friendly Farming week.

The Blaeberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola), also known as the Bilberry or Mountain bumblebee, is a small but bright and distinctive bumblebee – and one that hillwalkers, climbers and mountaineers may come across when they are ‘oot and aboot’.

This upland-specialist bumblebee is a key pollinator in the hills, working hard to keep our moorlands flowering and blaeberry blooming in what can be quite an inhospitable landscape.

Without pollination, there wouldn’t be berries or seeds for the birds and small mammals, and we wouldn’t have the extraordinary sight of purple-flowering heather splashed over our moorlands in late summer. Our environment would be less healthy, less colourful and less diverse.   

However, the Blaeberry bumblebee is under threat. It’s already been designated as a conservation-priority species by the Scottish Government because of the challenges that climate change poses to this cold-adapted, mountain-dwelling species, which is most at home on moorland over 300m. The Cairngorm National Park could be one of the few strongholds for the Blaeberry bumblebee left in the UK, and we are in an important position to support its conservation.  

To best protect and conserve these precious pollinators we need to understand exactly where they are found and how they are doing in these areas. Recording your bumblebee sightings is a practical way to contribute to knowledge and conservation in the hills – as mountaineers and walkers, we can collect valuable information from areas that are inaccessible to many people.

When and where should I look for Blaeberry bumblebees?

Blaeberry bumblebees are generally found in upland areas, at or over 300m above sea level. They can pop up in unexpected places, including gardens, agricultural fields and road verges close to hills or moorland. Their favourite flowers include blaeberry, heather, white clover, thistles and ragwort.

These bumblebees are most active between May and July but could be spotted as early as March or late as September, depending on the year and the weather

Keep an eye out anywhere that seems like suitable habitat for them. We would love to see Blaeberry bumblebee records coming in from all over, but we are particularly keen to hear about sightings in new areas where they haven’t been recorded before, especially in the Cairngorms National Park. Our Skills for Bees: Scotland project is working with partners in the national park to increase and improve long-term bumblebee recording and to conserve priority species.

To help with this, we’ve created a map of the top peaks across the Cairngorms where we have identified the right habitat present for Blaeberry bumblebees, but there are no publicly-available records at all. If you’re heading to these peaks over the summer, could you be the first to bag a bumblebee in these hills?   

If you have any questions about bumblebees or would like help identifying a bumblebee from a photo so that you can add your sighting to iRecord, please contact enquiries@bumblebeeconservation.org. 

OK, I’ve seen a Blaeberry bumblebee. Now what do I do?

Rejoice! You are one of the lucky ones! Now make your sighting count…  

If you see a Blaeberry bumblebee, take a photo and make a note of the date and location. Don’t worry if your photo isn’t to a professional standard! Blaeberry bumblebees are such a distinctive species, it’s often possible to confirm their identity even from slightly out-of-focus photos. 

We recommend using iRecord to log your sightings, which is simple to use and is available through their website or in a handy app. Wildlife sightings submitted to iRecord are checked and verified by a local expert, before feeding into a publicly available national database. This means your sightings can be accessed and used by anyone, including conservation organisations, planning authorities, students and researchers. The four key pieces of information needed are:

1. What you saw (species, with a photo if possible)
2. When you saw it (date)
3. Where you saw it (6-figure grid reference)
4. Who saw it (your name)

If you use the iRecord app, most of these details will be added automatically for you, using built-in GPS, or you can search using the map. You just need to press the big green ‘+’ symbol on the menu bar at the bottom of the screen and type in “Bombus monticola”.  

When using iRecord, some details are compulsory, but others aren’t. You don’t need to worry about ‘life stage’ or ‘sex’. In the ‘comment’ section, you can add further details if you’d like to, such as what type of flower the bumblebee was seen on, or anything else you find interesting. You’ll need to make an account to use the app but you can use the website without an account by clicking here.

An alternative simple way of making your sighting count is to contact your local records centre which keeps a database with all the wildlife sightings in their constituency. They may also be able to help with identification. In the Cairngorms National Park, this would be the North East Scotland Biological Records Centre. You can contact them or submit records through their website, or email them directly.

Science Manager, Dr Richard Comont, gives us an insight into why we’ve been seeing less bumblebees this year.

As the years roll by, there tends to be one thing that happened during the year that attaches itself as a label. 2020 was the year of Covid, 2022 was the 40°C heatwave. For a lot of people, 2024 was The Year of No Bees.

It all started off so well. Back in early March the skies were blue and queen bumblebees were emerging from their winter dormancy in high numbers – in fact, several species reached record numbers in March or April. But then the wheels came off. In June, volunteers across our BeeWalk network were recording around 11 bumblebees for every kilometre they walked. In a ‘normal’ year, they would be recording 21, almost twice as many. 2024 stood out as the worst June count on record.

Some species were faring even worse. The Red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) is a widespread and common species, understatedly beautiful with a jet-black body and bright red tail. The flight season started well, with around a third more sightings of overwintered queens than usual in March and April. But then – nothing happened.

Red-tailed bumblebee © Jade Oliver

In a normal year, those queens would find themselves a nest site and start producing workers in May, with numbers ramping up in June and staying high through July and August, workers gradually give way to males and new queens. During 2024 they just never managed to get going. In June, sightings were 83% down. Instead of seeing a Red-tail every 250-300 metres, BeeWalkers were only seeing one individual every two kilometres.

The immediate cause seems to have been the weather. After that burst of early-spring sunshine, the spring and early summer settled down into a pattern of dull, gloomy, damp days interspersed with heavy rain. This makes life incredibly difficult for bumblebees, especially in the early stages of nesting where the queen has to balance finding a nest site, foraging for herself, foraging for her developing offspring, and incubating her brood. Cool, damp weather means the queens spend more energy keeping themselves and their brood warm, which increases the need for foraging but decreases the time available for it.

To make things even more difficult, that foraging would have become more difficult in the poor weather. Food from flowers is less accessible on cold, damp days, especially as flowers close up or get damaged in heavy rain.

Unfortunately, the BeeWalk numbers show that many queens didn’t manage to walk this tightrope and nest successfully.

How can I help bumblebees?

In response to our latest BeeWalk data, we’ve launched an urgent appeal to help secure a future for bumblebees. We can’t control the weather, but we can:

• Make habitats more resilient to climate change
• Influence decision makers to prioritise pollinators, not pesticides
• Lead the fight to secure a future for bumblebees

By donating to our appeal, you’ll be helping to secure a future for our bumblebees.

Donate to our crisis appeal today.