Objectives

• To raise awareness of bumblebees in Britain; to involve the public in looking at bumblebees near where they live
• To train people to effectively identify bumblebees in order to begin to develop a long term monitoring programme
• To inform and influence agri-environment policy to facilitate bumblebee habitat and species restoration and recovery.

  Project Background
  Bumblebee decline has been cited in many recent publications but much of this evidence is anecdotal and difficult to quantify. This project aims to train people to identify bumble bees in the field and foster a wider interest and appreciation of bumblebees amongst the general public in order to develop a national scheme to gain current quantifiable data,.

  Methodology
  A 5 year survey of bumblebees that will start at an entry level understanding (e.g. Bombus lapidarius) and will develop over the period to allow the recording of more species by those who want to do so. The initial aim is to encourage 30,000 people to participate in the first year survey. Those who take an interest will be offered more advanced training via workshops and ID keys, with a view to developing a network of dedicated bumblebee recorders across the country. The data collected will help to provide updated distribution maps and, eventually, population density data of bumblebee species in the UK. This will inform and facilitate current and planned bumblebee habitat restoration management under DEFRA agri-environment schemes.
  

  Timing of project

  Phase 1: Development of project and submission of full bid

• A seven month contract will undertake the project planning and costing phase, prepare the bid for submission to HLF and build the partnerships necessary for the project to succeed.

  Phase 2: Launch event and Year 1 Survey

• This will be intended to begin the scheme by gaining mass appeal-the survey will target the first bee(s) seen in the year (likely to be Queens) and reduce the likelihood of misidentification as the commonest species emerge earlier than the rarer species. 40,000 packs will be produced and distributed; follow up surveys in subsequent years will use respondents as the core surveyors for training.

  Phase 3: Years 2-5 surveys, data presentation training and bee ID development

• Collation and data analysis
  Collate and analyse the data; in year 1 this will be available via the web. This will be ongoing throughout the project.
• Development of survey
  To reinvolve the initial participants and involve additional people in a continuation of the original survey with options of providing more detailed information made available to those who wish to do so.
• Training opportunities
  10 workshops are envisaged each year from year 2-5 of the project to train people in how to identify bumblebees. The workshops will aim to initially train regional trainers who can then train others.
  This will be supported by development of regional displays in museums and a central point for a reference collection of bumblebees in each area

  Phase 4: development of bee walks methodology and training in use

• Bee walks
  Once initial training has been provided, a series of bee walks will be carried out in order to collect information on density of foraging bees along a set transect similar to that produced for butterfly monitoring

  
  Scope of Project once funding expires
  The project will provide impetus to develop a national monitoring project for bumblebees

  Partnership
  Buglife will form a collaborative partnership with BWARS (membership 300) to provide expertise and potentially regional co-ordinators.

 

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Last updated 24th May 2006