Signs of spring in Scotland: Bumblebees & Blaeberries

24 May 2023

Our Skills for Bees: Scotland Project Officer, Annie Ives, featured as a guest on the Ramblin’ Rangers podcast, the nature-based segment on Keith Community Radio in Moray, Scotland. Annie provides a round up for anyone who didn’t catch her online!

“Awake, awake, you drowsy sleeper!”

Over the past few weeks, you might have noticed the return of a fuzzy friend. Queen bumblebees, which could have spent up to nine months hibernating, are awakening from their soil or leaf litter shelters, and flying out in search of early nectar-rich flowers to feast on and comfortable spaces to set up their nests.

In Scotland, we actually have 20 different species of bumblebee, or Foggie bummers as they are sometimes called in North-East Scotland. Many of our different species can be distinguished with the help of their different brightly coloured tails or stripe patterns.

At this time of year, as big, bright queens emerge from hibernation, early flowers such as crocuses and catkins were a vital sources of food. Next time you pass a willow tree, bursting with luminous yellow catkins, take a few minutes just to quietly sit underneath the boughs – as I did recently under the willow tree at the Glenlivet Estate Visitor Centre. You’ll be amazed at how the whole tree hums with the sound of busy bumblebees, feeding on the flowers and building themselves back up ready to start their nest. If you take a closer look, you’ll begin to notice their bright white, sandy or orange tails bobbing about as they move from flower to flower.

“Awake, awake, from your peaty soil chamber. The bilbr’y flower for your feasting.”

Looking forward over the next couple of months, we’ll be waiting with anticipation for the blaeberries to bloom. Depending on where you are from, you may have heard them called European blueberries, bilberries, whortleberries, whinberries, or Myrtle berries, but where-ever you are, the unassuming flowers of the blaeberry bush signal that spring has well and truly sprung. Later in the summer, the soft, sweet berries make a tasty treat for hillwalkers and many of us will have fond childhood memories of foraging blaeberries in abundance to make jams, tarts and pies – perhaps following the rule ‘one for me, one for the pot’. And we aren’t the only ones to enjoy the juicy, vitamin-packed crop – blaeberries are an important food source for some of our favourite Scottish creatures, from pine martens to capercaillies.

But for our beloved blaeberries to form, we rely on a wild and often overlooked little helper, doing her job now – in the spring. Over the next month or two, as the blaeberry plants bloom, she will visit many of those delicate, pink bell-shaped flowers which nod along as the spring breeze drifts through the pine forest understory and moorland edge. I’m talking, of course, about a humble bumblebee, moving pollen between the flowers, allowing them to reproduce, creating fruits and seeds in a process called pollination.

There is a particular species of bumblebee which is important for keeping our tummies filled with blaeberries. Its scientific name is Bombus monticola, which translates roughly to the mountaineer or highlander bumblebee. It’s more commonly known as the Blaeberry bumblebee in Scotland (and Bilberry bumblebee elsewhere) because of its association with higher altitude blaeberry-rich moorland.

The song I chose for the Ramblin’ Rangers podcast is a wonderful celebration of the Blaeberry bumblebee, written and performed by the award-winning folk artist Bella Hardy. The Blaeberry bumblebee has a very distinctive appearance, with two yellow stripes and a bright tail as described in Bella’s evocative lyric ‘Fetch that tail orange-red, as a candle bright flying, your light dispels gloomy mornings’. In fact, that fiery red tail covers more than half of the Blaeberry bumblebee’s abdomen and makes it distinctive from other bumblebee species with much smaller red tails. Although Bella is based in the Peak District in England – a more southern part of the Blaeberry bumblebee’s range, her gentle call for our “Little Queen of the Mountain” is just as – if not more – relevant here in Scotland, where we are lucky to have strongholds for this species in upland spaces like the Cairngorms.

“Bring the mountain alive, little bee.”

The Blaeberry bumblebee is one of four bumblebee species on the Scottish Biodiversity List – meaning that it is a conservation priority for the Scottish government. It was added to the list because of concerns that sightings have declined by more than a quarter over a 25-year period. Monitoring bumblebees and documenting their declines is fundamental to their conservation. If we don’t know which bumblebees are where, and how many – how can we protect them?

My work with the Trust on Skills for Bees: Scotland involves supporting volunteers in the Cairngorms National Park to look out for and look after bumblebees – building skills in identification and surveying. I am helping local people contribute to Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s citizen science program, BeeWalk – where volunteers walk a fixed route, monthly between March & October, counting and identify the bumblebees they see and then submitting their sightings to us. This helps us to measure how bumblebees are managing overall. We have new survey routes being set up throughout the Cairngorms National Park, including on the Glenlivet Estate and Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve, and I’d love to hear from anyone who is interested in getting involved. Over the next two years, we will also be carrying out targeted surveys to fill in some of the data gaps and find out more about how Blaeberry bumblebees and two other rare local species, are faring in this part of the world.

Sadly, we are seeing a decline in numbers for many bumblebee species, across the UK and across the globe. Habitat loss is a main driver – bumblebees can only get the nutrients they need from flowers, and in the UK, we have lost over 97% of our wildflower-rich hay meadow habitat since the 1930s. Sweeping changes in our landscape, from intensive farming to urbanisation, mean there are fewer suitable nesting spaces and fewer flowers to feed our bumblebees. And there are other threats too – bumblebees are thought to have evolved in the Tibetan plateau of the Himalaya, millions of years ago, they are large, hairy and well-adapted to the cooler, temperate climates so global warming through climate change is likely to increase the pressure on our cold-loving insects. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent – flooding can destroy underground bumblebee nests, while heatwaves and droughts desiccate the flowers they rely on for food. Bumblebees have natural parasites such as nematode worms, and have plenty of natural predators too, from great-tits and robins to badgers and foxes. They’ve evolved alongside these threats which aren’t thought to be a major cause of declines, but in combination with the other pressures that bumblebees face, they can have an effect. Research also shows that beekeeping could be having a detrimental effect on wild pollinators too, as diseases and viruses can and are jumping from domesticated honeybee hives into wild bumblebee populations, passed from bee to bee when they visit the same flowers.

The Trust works to reverse bumblebee declines through scientific research and monitoring, practical habitat work, education and engagement. We want to help you understand what you can do to support bumblebees – and trust me, everyone can do something! From helping out with our local surveys in the Cairngorms, to planting a pot of lavender on your doorstep or window box, to encouraging your council to reduce pesticide use, fundraising or just sharing our bumblebee story with your friends and family. Some of the best ways to help bumblebees are also the easiest! Leave the lawnmower in the shed and let your dandelions grow! Soon we will hear …

“an anthem of buzzing, to herald the summer in.”

If you have time you can listen to the full podcast.