BeeWalking: Not like Dog Walking!

By Liz Gibbs

I have been a member of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BCT) for several years after reading Dave Goulson’s wonderful book A Sting in the Tale (2013). I have been keen to make my garden more bee friendly through planting and introducing a Top Bar Hive. I had found out about the BeeWalks through the BCT, but I wasn’t sure my bee ID skills were up to it! It involves identifying a walk of over 1 km through a varied number of habitats, then committing to doing the walk once a month. This involves identifying any bees you spot, also the plant on which it was feeding and the numbers of bees.

 

White-tailed Bumblebee

In April 2018, the patient and knowledgeable John Butler from the local BCT kindly came to the North Curry Community Woodland to advise me about the suitability of the walk I’d chosen. With a few adjustments, it was agreed that, though short (1.2 km only), it was okay and I could go ahead.

 

I then attended a beginners’ bee ID course at the Environmental Centre at Carymoor, near Castle Cary, on a former landfill site (see www.carymoor.org.uk). The information and company that day were great even if the bees were in short supply, but it gave me courage!

Common Carder Bee

Thus began my monthly walks! As you go round with your clipboard, camera (I use my iPhone), ID chart and plastic pot for trapping bees, the job is to identify any bees you see, how many, whether male or female and which plants they are feeding on. I was very lucky this year that I never had to contend with masses of bees I couldn’t identify. 

The tally always included the White, Buff and Red-tailed Bumblebees, the Garden Bumblebee, the Common Carder and lots of honey bees. Two very pretty bees also turned up which I’d seen in my garden, the Ashy Mining Bee and the Hairy-footed Flower Bee, so I was happy to see and recognise them. There were also the distinctive Fly Bees and evidence of Leaf Cutter Bees. 

Ashy Mining Bee

Over their short lives, the bees’ coats wear and become dull which can be confusing, and males can differ markedly from females. If in doubt, I sometimes had to do a ‘best guess’ and vow to do better next time! I was desperate to see, and hear, a Shrill Carder Bee, rare in Britain but locally becoming less so, but no such luck! A highpoint was to see two Red-tailed Bumblebees mating in the middle of the football pitch! I watched and photographed for some time – amazing! 

Mating Red-tailed Bumblebees

When you get home to your computer you enter your findings in ‘your’ walk chart, add such things as temperature and weather, and press ‘send’! It goes into a colossal database enabling the experts to track the high and low points of bee species throughout the country and plan work accordingly.

By September, the drought had cut down most flowering plants and no bees were around for my final Walk. During the summer I had become far more confident in my ID skills, sharper in my observations and very keen to do it again in future years!

If you would like more information, the best place to start is by contacting the Bumblebee Conservation Trust on www.bumblebeeconservation.org or www.beewalk.org.uk where there is a wealth of advice and information. They produce a very good book called Bumblebees: An Introduction (2018) with excellent photos, distribution maps and easy-to-follow advice.