[Chris Monk]

From English Nature web site:

It’s as easy as one, two, bee!

New Field Guide to Britain and Ireland’s bumblebees

The first-ever comprehensive photographic field guide to the British bumblebee, ‘Field Guide to the Bumblebees of Great Britain and Ireland’ published on Thursday (24 March) uses for the first time a new three-step way to identify bees doing away with the need to put bees under the microscope.

The new technique could help an army of amateur naturalists and professional field workers in the front line of monitoring decades of decline in Britain’s native bumblebees. Information about distribution and numbers can be a bit patchy as some rarer bumblebees have been quite difficult to identify.

Follow three simple steps:

look for presence of and number of yellow bands on thorax and find on colour chart

cross check with pattern on abdomen and accompanying notes on colour chart

confirm identification with photographs and species accounts

The easy-to-use graphic guide has been developed by leading authority Mike Edwards, and entomologist and former secretary of the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society, Martin Jenner. Martin Jenner, a science marketing consultant, came up with the strong visuals that makes the three-step identification guide so simple to use.

The Field Guide to Bumblebees of Britain and Ireland is published by Ocelli and priced £9.99 plus £1.25 postage and packaging. It can be obtained through major book stores or from the publisher’s website www.ocelli.co.uk.

For more information download a copy of Help save the bumblebee...get more buzz from your garden or visit the Nature in the garden part of this website to find our more about gardening with wildlife in mind.

We are working closely with the BBC on the Springwatch campaign to raise awareness and understanding of the key issues that affect wildlife near you.

[harry eales]

Originally Posted by Chris Monk

From English Nature web site:

It’s as easy as one, two, bee!

New Field Guide to Britain and Ireland’s bumblebees

The first-ever comprehensive photographic field guide to the British bumblebee, ‘Field Guide to the Bumblebees of Great Britain and Ireland’ published on Thursday (24 March) uses for the first time a new three-step way to identify bees doing away with the need to put bees under the microscope.

The new technique could help an army of amateur naturalists and professional field workers in the front line of monitoring decades of decline in Britain’s native bumblebees. Information about distribution and numbers can be a bit patchy as some rarer bumblebees have been quite difficult to identify.

Follow three simple steps:

look for presence of and number of yellow bands on thorax and find on colour chart

cross check with pattern on abdomen and accompanying notes on colour chart

confirm identification with photographs and species accounts

The easy-to-use graphic guide has been developed by leading authority Mike Edwards, and entomologist and former secretary of the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society, Martin Jenner. Martin Jenner, a science marketing consultant, came up with the strong visuals that makes the three-step identification guide so simple to use.

The Field Guide to Bumblebees of Britain and Ireland is published by Ocelli and priced £9.99 plus £1.25 postage and packaging. It can be obtained through major book stores or from the publisher’s website www.ocelli.co.uk.

For more information download a copy of Help save the bumblebee...get more buzz from your garden or visit the Nature in the garden part of this website to find our more about gardening with wildlife in mind.

We are working closely with the BBC on the Springwatch campaign to raise awareness and understanding of the key issues that affect wildlife near you.

Don't get too carried away as to how easy it will be to ID Bumblebees. I have no doubt that this new book will be a very useful aid to all who have an interest in these magnificent insects, but some caution is advised.

Having worked on them for some forty years I still come across specimens that I cannot identify positively in the field and have to bring home to check up on.

One of the great problems in using colour banding to ID specimens is that some are often missing in some specimens, Bumblebees are subject to a greater variation in markings than many moths.

I have had conversations and correspondence with Mike Edwards, he is an extremely knowledgable and competant hymenopterist and I'm sure his book will be very good. All I'm saying is, that all may not be quite what it seems, when ID'ing Bumblebees.

When I first started recording in the 1960's I came across several worker Bumblebees that I couldn't narrow down to a specific species. I sent these to Dr.I.H.H.Yarrow at the British Museum an acknowledged world expert. He couldn't positively ID them without dissection and could only offer a suggestion of two species that they could be.

Harry

[Kevin Mac]

Bumblebees? I always thought there were two or three species. There's more? And since I'm proving my ignorance of the little critters I once broke open a rotten old stump and was sure there were "baby" bumblebees- small versions of the adults. Was I seeing correctly?

[harry eales]

Originally Posted by Kevin Mac

Bumblebees? I always thought there were two or three species. There's more? And since I'm proving my ignorance of the little critters I once broke open a rotten old stump and was sure there were "baby" bumblebees- small versions of the adults. Was I seeing correctly?

Hello Kevin,

In the UK we have some 27 species of Bumblebee of which three are almost certainly now extinct. I have no knowledge as to how many species occur in your country.

What you found in the rotten tree stump (if they were bees) are likely to have been hibernating queens of some species, if you found them between late Autumn and early Spring, not all Bumblebee queens are large.

Or, if they were a number of them and were active, you may have broken into a nest. The workers of all Bumblebee species are smaller than the Queens and those produced early in the life of the colony are often very small indeed. Sorry I can't be more helpfull on what you found.

Harry.

[senatore]

I do not know much about bumble bees but I can say that there are a lot around at the moment in my garden. 5 have flown into the conservatory via the open doors ( opened due to the fine weather).

I do not know if it is the right thing to do but I capture them by covering them with a glass aginst the windows sliding in a piece of card and then releasing them to their freedom outside.

They can be pretty big.Do they have a big sting.

MAX.

[harry eales]

Originally Posted by senatore

I do not know much about bumble bees but I can say that there are a lot around at the moment in my garden. 5 have flown into the conservatory via the open doors ( opened due to the fine weather).

I do not know if it is the right thing to do but I capture them by covering them with a glass aginst the windows sliding in a piece of card and then releasing them to their freedom outside.

They can be pretty big.Do they have a big sting.

MAX.

Hello Max,
You are doing the right thing in letting them loose outside. Unfortunately conservatories and greenhouses are death traps to Bumblebees as well as many other insect species.

Yes Bumblebee Queens and Workers can sting, but unlike a Honeybees sting it doesn't have a barb on it, so a Bumblebee doesn't die after stinging you.

Having handled several thousand Bumblebees over the past forty or more years I have yet to be stung, so I can't say how painfull it is. Bumblebees do give you some warning, in that they will raise their middle leg on the side of their body nearest to you, if they get more agitated, they will roll onto their back and curl up their abdomen and expose their sting, so you do get some warning in most instances. I wouldn't really worry about being stung at all, just make all your movements slow and gentle.

I would suggest you check your conservatory for Bumblebees a couple or more times a day, temperatures inside these, especially during the summer can rocket up in a very short time.

Harry