Life

Buzz about the humble bumble

With the bumblebee in perilous decline an exciting new initiative looks to put the buzz back into bees... AN EXCITING new UK-wide project is looking for your help to discover more about the humble bumblebee.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is working with computer scientists and ecologists at the University of Aberdeen on BeeWatch and they want us all to get involved in identifying our bumblebee population and distribution.

Ecologist Dr Rene van der Wal is asking for volunteers from every walk of life. Whether you're a walker, enjoy a potter around the garden or want something to do with schoolfriends, you could play a role in building up a picture of how bumblebees are faring.

You'll have read about the plight of honeybees and the threat posed by the varroa mite, pesticides and intensive farming. Because honey is a much-used ingredient in food, household products, medicine and cosmetics there has been an international outcry about the threat to their existence.

However, the world's 250 species of bumblebee are also crucial to the our eco-system as one of nature's most important pollinators of both crops and wildflowers.

The BeeWatch project has been prompted by the decline of the UK's 24 bumblebee species as a result of habitat loss and changes in agricultural practices.

Dr van der Wal, of the Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability, said: "This is part of an effort to use computer science assist to in nature conservation.

"The bumblebee population has been in decline for some time and it would be very hard to find enough specialists to conduct a census. There is also a danger that experts could become swamped with information.

"So we are asking people to help identify bumblebees for us. We have put together a very nice, friendly website that people can find their way around easily. And we're hoping that as many people as possible will get involved."

Dr van der Wal is particularly hopeful that teenagers might be interested in the project, having 'tested the waters' at a recent science event in Scotland and discovered that they got a buzz - pardon the pun - out of trying to ID the bumblebees.

Organisers hope that volunteers will submit photographs to the BeeWatch website - http://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/wp n003/beewatch - possibly helping by suggesting identifications.

"It doesn't matter if you've never done anything like this before as the website offers pictures and facts on different species of bumblebee, allowing you to start trying to identify bumblebees. An expert will then get back to you with feedback to confirm the identification, thus allowing you to learn how to identify these intriguing creatures," Dr van der Wal said.

And if you have a garden then you can do even more. By setting plants such as Vviper's bugloss, honeysuckle, foxglove and aquilegia, you are providing a nectar-rich source of fuel for local bumblebees.

News of the Aberdeen project comes as scientists from 25 wildlife organisations have warned that 60 per cent of UK species studied have declined over recent decades with more than one in 10 under threat of disappearing.

A new report by the State of Nature coalition was launched by conservation charities at the Ulster Museum in Belfast a fortnight ago with simultaneous events held in Cardiff, Edinburgh and London.

Paying tribute to an army of volunteers who helped record and survey species, one of the report's authors, Dr Mark Eaton, warned that in Northern Ireland, there were 472 species considered to be endangered, including the curlew, the harbour porpoise, the marsh honey fungus and the Irish lady's tresses orchid, while the Irish hare had suffered declines of 25 per cent in the last 25 years.

Dr Eaton listed the major and continuing threats to wildlife as sweeping habitat loss, changes to countryside management and climate change.

However, there remains hope, with Dr David Attenborough rightly pointing that that Britain and Ireland boast a "network of passionate conservation groups supported by millions of people who love wildlife". And that must matter.

? For more information on helping bumblebees visit bumblebeeconservation.org/ or contact enquiries@bumblebeeconservation.org. ? BUSY: Clockwise from top, a white tailed bee, a garden bee, a common carder bee and an early male bee