Help us to count the UK’s bumblebees

Person walking through field with net looking for bumblebees

Bumblebees are declining across Britain (we’ve already lost two species), and to better understand the reasons why, and what we can do to help, we need data – lots of data – on where we can find the remaining bees, how many there are, and what they’re doing.

You can help!

There are currently three different ways that you can help us track the UK’s bumblebees:

BeeWalk

This is the national recording scheme to monitor the abundance of bumblebees across Britain (Ireland and Northern Ireland run an equivalent scheme).  The scheme would be impossible without volunteers like you, who identify and count the bumblebees they see on a fixed route walked each month from March to October inclusive.

Anyone with basic bumblebee identification knowledge can become a BeeWalker (to gain these skills sign up to a training session), otherwise all you need is a spare hour or two every month between March and October, to walk a fixed route of about 1 to 2km (you choose where to walk), and submit your sightings to the BeeWalk website.

The information collected by BeeWalkers is integral to the work of the Trust, allowing us to gain an accurate understanding of bumblebee populations and distributions across Britain. Knowing the size of populations and how these are changing over time is key to monitoring population trends, identifying species at risk and acting as an early warning system for species declines.

The ever-growing BeeWalk dataset, now one of the largest bumblebee datasets in the world, allows us to explore a variety of questions, both  in-house and in collaboration with research institutions. As well as population trends analysis we are also investigating a range of subjects such as population changes in response to land use and climate change, and species and habitat interactions.

To keep up to date with the latest results, see the annual reports on the BeeWalk website publication page.

For a full summary of progress to date, download our ‘10 Year BeeWalk Report‘ (2011-2021).


See our range of resources and sign up at www.beewalk.org.uk or contact beewalk@bumblebeeconservation.org if you have any queries.


UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS)

Focusing on a range of flower-visiting insects, UKPoMS is able to measure trends in pollinator populations across the UK. Data from BeeWalk is feeding into this, but there’s also scope for anyone to contribute directly to the scheme, either by carrying out short FIT counts (watch a patch of flowers for 10 minutes and see what turns up) or by taking on monitoring a 1km square. For details of how to join in, go to the PoMS website.


iRecord

To record bees (and other wildlife) on a more ad hoc basis, go to the iRecord website. Please include a photo of the bumblebee that you have seen to allow the iRecord experts to verify your sighting.

Alternatively, if you have a photo but are unable to identify the bumblebee species, you can try uploading the picture to iSpot or the UK Bees, Wasps and Ants where experts will help with your ID. Take a look at our tips on taking identifiable photographs of bumblebees.

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