Plight of the bumblebee

Bees in the UK─ Around 250 species of bee

─ 24 bumblebees

─ 1 honeybee

─ The rest are solitary bees

─ All bees get nectar from flowers (fuel) and protein-rich pollen (for growth)

Bees in the UK

Mining bee, Andrena Red Mason Bee, Osmia rufa

Solitary bee, Colletes daviesanus

Honeybee, Apis mellifera

Tawny mining bee, Andrena fulva

What are bumblebees? ─ Hymenoptera (Bees, wasps, ants

and sawflies); genus ‘Bombus’

─ Around 250 species worldwide

─ Annual life cycle

─ Feed exclusively on pollen and nectar

─ Predominantly northern hemisphere

What are bumblebees?

Picture from Volynchik et al. 2006. Microscopy Research and Technique 69: 903-912.

‘Warm-blooded’ – high energy requirements = they need a lot of flowers!

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Bumblebees and honeybeesBumblebees

─ Wild

─ 18 social species and 6 cuckoo species

─ 50-400 workers

─ No dancing!

─ Only the queen survives winter

─ Struggling due to flower shortages - habitat loss

Honeybees

─ Domesticated

─ Only 1 species

─ 50,000 workers

─ ‘Waggledance’

─ Colony survives winter

─ Hives badly affected by diseases

The bumblebee life cycle

What bumblebees need

─ Somewhere to nest

─ Somewhere to hibernate

─ Lots of flowers for food

What has happened to bumblebees?

─ 1980 Atlas of bumblebees found widespread declines

─ Over a third of the social bumblebee species have declined by more than 70%

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1900-19501950-20002000-2007

Great yellow bumblebee

Maps from NBN

Maps from NBN

Shrill carder bee2000-20072000-2007

1900-19501950-2000

1900-19501950-20002000-2007

Short-haired bumblebee

Maps from NBN

Common species?─ Many of the common species were found

‘everywhere’

─ They do the bulk of the pollination, so is everything ok?

─ Until recently, only distribution was recorded – so we know where the bees are

─ But we don’t know very much about abundance

─ Common species may not be so abundant, but we wouldn’t know!

─ Our ‘Bee Walk’ monitoring scheme will help to find this data, but it’s early days

Should we be worried?─ Huge commercial importance as

pollinators

─ Insect pollination in the UK worth £440 million (1996)

─ €14.2 billion in EU

─ Many wild plants depend on them for pollination

─ Bumblebees help to support networks of semi-natural flower-rich grassland

─ No bumblebees = sweeping changes to the countryside

─ Intrinsic value bumblebee at commercial raspberry flower

Schematic representation range of plants visited by honey bees and bumblebees (showing area of overlap)

Tongue length (mm) 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Honey bee worker Bumblebee workerBumblebee queen

Why are bumblebees declining?

─ Great loss of bumblebee habitat

─ 98% of flower-rich grassland has been lost in UK since 1940s

─ Agricultural changes to more intensive methods

─ Cutting grass many times a year and heavy grazing

─ Removal of hedgerows and areas without crops

Habitats

Habitats

Habitats

Habitats!

and Habitats

Habitats

Habitats

Habitats

What can we do to help bumblebees?

The best sites for bumblebees in the UK look like this…

…and this...

BBCT’s work with farmers—Stimulate interest

—Promote sympathetic management

—Provide advice

—Help to get the best out of agri-environment schemes

—Demonstrate best practice

—Focus in priority areas, for now

Land management

─ RSPB Vane Farm at Loch Leven

─ Re-seeded with local wildflower seeds

─ Now used for food by the rare blaeberry bumblebee from nearby hills – success!

Relatively small flower-rich patches can support workers from many nests, visiting from

up to a kilometre away

A mosaic of bee refuges spread around the

countryside would maintain populations

Gardening for bumblebees

─ Some bumblebee species are now more common in gardens and parks than in the countryside

─ Gardens cover more than 1 million hectares in the UK

─ It’s important to have the right plants that provide pollen and nectar from March - September

Spring Early summer Late summer

Gardening for bumblebees

─ Many common bedding plants are no good for bumblebees or other wildlife

─ Produce little or no nectar or pollen

─ Have been bred by horticulturalists to have flowers that look nice, but are too hard for bees to use

X

Gardening for bumblebees

Nest establishment in spring:

─ Daffodil

─ Willow

─ Lungwort

─ Flowering currant

─ Heather

─ Bluebell

Gardening for bumblebees

Colony growth continues in spring and summer:

─ Buddleia

─ Foxglove

─ Lavender

─ Thyme

─ ‘pea-family’ plants

─ Aquilegia

─ Allium

Gardening for bumblebees

Mid- to late-summer fledging of new queens and males – this requires a lot of food

─ Lavender

─ Honeysuckle

─ Clovers

─ Scabious

─ Cornflower

─ Campanula

A nest that has not reared new queens or males has failed

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Bee Kind

Making space for bumblebees

─ Go wild! Wildflower meadows are great habitat for bees, and can be created in most gardens or amenity grassland.

─ Perfect for community areas

─ Will flower year after year if managed properly

─ More information on these in factsheets and booklet ‘Making Space for Bumblebees’

BeeWalk

─ National scheme to collect abundance data

─ Helps us detect population declines

─ All data contributes to long-term monitoring of populations in response to climate and land-use change

─ Volunteers walk a 1-2km route once a month between March and October

─ They record:

─ all bumblebee species seen

─ The number of each species seen

How can you help?– Help increase habitat availability on farmed land through

sympathetic management

– Surveying

– the more records we have, the better an understanding we have of bumblebees and which need our help most

– volunteers could really help to increase records and collect abundance data for the first time through the BeeWalk scheme

– Provide bumblebee habitat in your garden

Join us!– We’d love to welcome you as a new member of BBCT

– Membership types to suit all, starting from as little as £16 per year

–You will receive our ‘Buzzword’ newsletter three times per year

– New members receive our welcome pack tailored to those interested in gardening or bumblebee identification:

– A choice of either:

– ‘What’s that bumblebee?’ ID guide and ID poster, or

– ‘Gardening for bumblebees’ and Gardening poster

AND

– Bumblebee pin badge

– A packet of wildflower seeds

– Window sticker

Join us!

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