Buzz…Buzz…Buzz

In conjunction with our Bee Safari happening this Saturday 31st March, find below all the lovely facts you have ever wanted to know about Bees. Thank you to Oliver Bishop for putting the info together for us.

If you want to know more about Bees come down on Saturday on The Meadows by Peel Park, 12-2pm.

Bumblebees are, simply, a pleasure to be around.  Their bobbing flight patterns are a joy to look at and their buzzing denotes the coming of summer.  But there is more. They may be intrinsically fascinating and beautiful creatures but they also have huge ecological and economic benefits.

Honeybees and bumblebees contribute massive amounts to the economy.  Europe’s insect pollinators contribute €14.2 billon to the European economy and it is the honeybees and the bumblebees that deliver most of it.  And it is the bumblebees that pollinate a much broader range of crops and wildflowers than the honeybees.  Honeybees have smaller ‘tongues’ then bumblebees and therefore bumblebees can feed on a greater number of different plants and so pollinate a greater number.  In fact, certain crops are only pollinated by bumble bees and many wild plants are solely dependent on them for pollination.

Therefore, if there is a decline in pollination because of reductions in bumblebee numbers, we will lose most of our ‘5-a-day’ fruit and vegetables, the countryside will lose its colour and there will be further knock on effects for other wildlife that depend on flowers to survive.  Therefore, bumblebees are an integral part of our ecosystems as well as being part of our valuable biodiversity.  However they are reducing in numbers.

Why are they declining?

The main reason bumblebees are in decline is that there has been a loss of flower rich habitat.  In fact, we have lost 98% of our species rich grasslands mainly due to changes in our agricultural practices.

Bumblebees need extensive foraging areas of around 10-12 sq.km and therefore they need suitable habitat patches over a larger area so that foraging can take place all year round.

Many fields are now mown and cultivated right up to the hedges and walls that surround them.  If a whole field can’t be converted to flower rich meadows then the margins should be enhanced with a mixture of pollen and nectar flowers and tussocks of grass should be encouraged.

In addition to the changes in agriculture none native and decorative, cultivated plants and flowers in gardens have either lost their nectar or it can’t be accessed by our native bees.

There are around 1million ha of garden space in the UK so planting bee friendly flowers and encouraging patches of long grass can really help increase the numbers of bees in Britain.

How many bees are there in Britain?

• There are lots of different types of bee in Britain – around 250 different species, including 24 bumblebees, the 1 honeybee and 225 small solitary species.
• There are 20 social bumblebee species – where there is a queen (female), workers (female) and males – there can be between 50-400 workers in a nest (honeybees can be up to 40,000).
• The cuckoo bumblebee is an ‘anti-social’ bee – there are only queens and males.  The queen takes over a social bees nest and takes control of the old queens workers.  Therefore, it doesn’t have to do any work.

In general there are only 6 bumblebees that are still common in most gardens and more than 95% of all sightings are now of these 6 species.

Buff-Tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) – The queens are very large with a buff coloured tail and common in early spring.  The workers have a largely white tail, but usually with a hint of buff at the front of the margin.  They have yellow bands that are slightly darker/dirtier than the white-tailed bumblebee.

Early Bubmblebee (Bombus pratorum) – A small bee.  The queen has two dirty yellow bands, a black face and an orange tail.  The workers also have an orange tail but they have a yellow face and two lighter yellow bands than the queen.

Common Carder Bee (B. pascurum) – Abundant everywhere and the only common all brown bee.

White-Tailed Bumblebee (B. lucorum) – A common bee with a pure-white tails and lemon yellow bands.

Red-Tailed Bumblebee (B. lapidaries) – As the name suggests, both the queen and the workers have a red tail.  The queen is all black and the workers have a yellow face and a single yellow band.

Garden Bumblebee (B. hortorum) – A very longue tongue species which prefers deep flowers such as foxgloves.  It has a long face, white tail and two yellow bands, the one further down the abdomen being divided by a thin, black band.

Bee Life Cycle

Bumblebees have an annual lifecycle.

SPRING: – Queens emerge from hibernation to forage and look for a potential nest.  Queen bumblebees are very large, and from February onwards you will see them feeding on flowers and flying low over the ground searching for somewhere to start their nests, e.g. an old mouse/vole hole, a tussock of grass, in flowerbeds and flower pots.

Once the queen has found somewhere to nest, she collects lots of pollen and nectar and then lays her first batch of eggs.  She incubates them a bit like a bird, sitting on them and ‘shivering’ her muscles to produce warmth

When the eggs hatch the white grubs eat the pollen and nectar collected by their mum.  They grow rapidly and form pupae.  A few days later the first workers hatch from their pupae and begin helping their mother, expanding the nest and gathering food.  Around the 3^rd batch the queen stays in the nest and lets the workers do everything else.

SUMMER: – By mid-summer the nests of some species can contain more than 400 worker bees.  At this point the queen starts laying both male and female eggs.  The males don’t do much, they collect nectar, not pollen, laze around, mate then die.  The females are fed extra food and become future queens.  Both the males and the new queens leave the nest to mate, and the new queens burrow into the ground to hibernate until the following spring.  The males, workers, and the old queen die off in the autumn, leaving the nest to decay.

Gardens as Bumblebee Havens

The best flowers to plant to encourage and support bees are: