The gentle buzzing of bumblebees is one of the iconic sounds of a British summer - it is a joy to watch and listen as these charismatic insects move from flower to flower. Midway through the year, gardens are in bloom, school holidays are on the horizon and fundraising initiatives are in full swing! And what better way to start, than with a Pollin8 fundraiser - Celebr8 with a Pollin8 Picnic! This summer, Celebr8 with a Pollin8 Picnic 🧺If you appreciate everything that bumblebees do for us and our environment, what better way to celebrate than with our latest fundraiser challenge: a Pollin8 picnic!
Gather your friends, family or colleagues this summer to enjoy some delicious pollinator-friendly treats and raise money to protect bumblebees at the same time!
Register online and we’ll send you a buzzing toolkit packed with recipes, games, and ideas to help you raise funds, spread awareness, and make a real difference for our brilliant bumblebees 🐝💛
Pollin8 is a series of flexible fundraising challenges that you can shape to fit your lifestyle and showcase your own unique talents. Register your challenge today 👇🏽 Spotlight on the Cairngorms - bumblebee bagging! 🔎The uplands of the Cairngorms National Park are home to some of the UK's rare bumblebees, including the Blaeberry bumblebee (also known as the Bilberry or Mountain bumblebee), but monitoring them is a challenge due to the remoteness of the area 🏔️
This summer, we launched a campaign to ask nature lovers and mountaineers exploring the unique landscapes in and around the Cairngorms National Park to keep an eye out for this rare bumblebee and to report their sightings via iRecord.
Whether you’re bagging Munros, completing Corbetts, or just enjoying a quiet stroll through moorland, your observation could help protect one of Scotland’s most iconic upland pollinators. Find out more 👇🏽 Giving bumblebees a voice in ScotlandOur recent advocacy work in Scotland has seen us sharing our Manifesto for Bumblebees with Members of the Scottish Parliament and even reciting poetry!
To mark World Bee Day in May, we welcomed five MSP Nature Champions to the University of Stirling for a wild bee-themed event co-hosted with Scottish Environment LINK, Buglife and the University.
At the start of June, we were delighted to attend the Nature Champions reception at the Scottish Parliament, celebrating over 100 MSPs who champion Scotland’s species and habitats. We congratulated Bilberry bumblebee champion, Graham Simpson MSP, on receiving the Muddy Boots Award for his hands-on enthusiasm and commitment 🏆
We were back at Parliament a week later for the Stand Up for Nature demonstration, showing support for a strong Natural Environment Bill as MSPs prepare to debate the legislation later this year 📢 Senior Science and Policy Officer, Darryl Cox, recited his poem ‘Imagine a world where bumblebees could vote’. The Bill offers a historic opportunity to introduce legally binding targets for nature recovery in Scotland. We were proud to be there, standing up for bumblebees. Bumblebee mitesMost bumblebees have many tiny mites clinging to their bodies 🐝 In most cases the mites are difficult to see, but sometimes they can cover large parts of the bumblebee’s body.
The good news is that most of the mite species that live with bumblebees are fairly harmless to them and are simply clinging to the bumblebee so that they can be transported to new nests. When in the nest, the mites usually feed upon the wax, pollen, nest debris, and other small insects, so do not feed on the bumblebees. Then, when they reach a certain stage in their lifecycle, the mites cling to worker bumblebees, and are transported onto flowers. From these flowers, the mites then attach to other visiting bees, and are transported to new nests. |
