If one of your aims this year is to enjoy
the outdoors more frequently, then Beewalks could be just the sort of prompt
you need to get out and about regularly. A Beewalk is an hour-long amble
through a pretty glade or other flowery spot. Armed with a crib sheet showing
common bee types, you glance around you and note the number of bees you see and
whether they are solitary or seen in clusters – on a gorse bush, for instance.
Beewalks are undertaken once a month and
it’s best if you aim for a similar time of day each time. That way you get a
better idea of whether bee numbers at that location are up or down. You also
give yourself the perfect reason to go and spend time at one of your favourite
spots. The beauty of the scheme is that you choose your own study location and
the emphasis is on it being somewhere you can get to conveniently and
regularly. Local parks and riverbanks are a good option.
Beewalks were set up by researchers at the
University of Stirling and are a direct response to the sharp fall in honey
bees in the UK (as well as many other countries). We need bees to pollinate
flowers and fruit. Numbers have seemingly dropped off alarmingly. The BBCT
(Bumblebee Conservation Trust) acts as a public census to discover just how
widespread the decimation of the bumblebee population may be, and whether all varieties
of bumblebee are affected. Ideally, you’ll log details of your Beewalk findings
over successive years, so a picture can be built up of how your local bee
population is doing. Results are collated on a national map.
In the three years that the scheme has been
running, BBCT volunteers have made some unexpected discoveries. Several types
of bee that were prevoiously thought rare have been found in strong numbers.
Bees have also been seen outside their traditional March to September active
periods. Winter bees are also now being enthusiastically logged, though
beewalkers aren’t expected to commit to braving the harsh winter weather to
confirm such sightings.
The discovery of a broader than expected
range of bumblebees prompted the Beewalk organisers to add another option to
the public survey: photography. This less formal bee sighting scheme is an ideal
way of letting the Bumblebee Conservation Trust know about your bee sightings.
Confirmed sightings of bees via the BeeWatch help the BBCT build up
distribution patterns, says Elaine O’Mahony, the organisation’s surveys
officer. Of course you also learn to distinguish bee types as you go, and have
a great excuse to practice your close-up photography.
To find out more about Beewatch see this PowerPoint slide.
