Bumblebee Conservation Trust: Call for volunteers

Would you like to learn more about bumblebees and how to identify different species? Would you like to help discover and monitor how bumblebee populations are doing in Eryri and indeed across North Wales?

With bumblebee species populations declining across Europe, the Skills for Bees Cymru project couldn’t be more timely. Wales has 23 of the 24 native UK bumblebee species, however many areas are under-recorded and some species and sites have not been recorded in years.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is offering free training sessions in bumblebee identification and how to carry out bumblebee monitoring!

These sessions are an opportunity to learn about these important pollinators and they are also the start of an exciting 3 year citizen science project. Skills for Bees Cymru will train you in bumblebee identification and monitoring, so that you can contribute in two different ways:

• Recording bumblebees at home or wherever you go 
• Monitoring bumblebees through citizen science scheme, BeeWalk. The skills you’ll acquire from this training will allow you to contribute to essential evidence that helps drive policy and protection. 

Initial training consists of two online beginner sessions on bumblebee identification and recording. These will  be followed by opportunities to join Clare Flynn (BCT’s Skills for Bees Cymru Project Officer) in the field to practise skills, including practical demos on how to set up a BeeWalk. BeeWalk involves identifying and counting bumblebees on a monthly walk along a set route from March to October. The information collected enables monitoring of bumblebee population change through time, allowing detection of early warning signs of population declines, and contributing to long-term monitoring of bumblebee population changes in response to changes in land-use and climate change.

Training is free and available to anyone with an interest – no previous knowledge required!

Our first two ONLINE (Zoom) sessions will be:

1. An introduction to bumblebees and bumblebee identification (common species) – Wednesday 29^th March 6-8pm.
2. An introduction to recording bumblebees and the BeeWalk citizen science scheme – Wednesday 5^th April 6-8pm.

Book on through our EVENTS page.

If you are keen to join but unavailable on the dates above, please contact jen@snowdonia-society.org.uk and we can arrange to send you a recording of the training afterwards.

Field days will be arranged following the zoom sessions. Please contact Clare.Flynn@bumblebeeconservation.org with any questions about the project.