A year with Bumblebees!

A year with Bumblebees

My love of Bumblebees started when I was 4! I distinctly remember a beautiful purple flower in my parents’ garden absolutely covered with beautiful bees. I also remember them not being entirely happy being put into a jam jar by an enthusiastic 4 year old girl and shaken!  I discovered to my cost that they do sting! It takes a lot and probably a lot of irritation.

Over the years I have lived in various parts of the UK and have always been fascinated by these busy, colourful Bees. Their busy work ethic and docile behaviour around the garden made me smile. So in 2025 when I saw East Lothian Council were looking for Bee counters I signed up.

I had been a member of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust for a few years after reading the book “A sting in the Tale” by David Goulson and his journey to reintroduce the short tailed Bumblebee. So full of enthusiasm I became a Bee counter. My transect (area to be studied) stretched over around a mile and a half and I had to walk the route at least once a week recording what I saw. Dividing the Bees into type and gender if possible. I used a provided recording sheet and was to try and name the flowers I also saw the Bees feeding on. Each walk was then subdivided into 9 parts so detailing the information further as it had already had a pre description of the type of grasses/plants in the area.

I was due to start in March last year and the area was the south side of North Berwick Law. At first I saw quite a few queens namely Buff Tailed Bumblebees (Bombus Terrestris) intrsprinkled with a few Red Tailed Bumblebees (Bombus Lapidarius) and Common Carder Bees (Bombus Pascuorum). It looked initially as if I was going to have a good spotting year. I watched these queens flitting around the grass lands looking for nest sites examining mouse hols, tufts of grass before moving on. We had a very warm summer last year (2024 we had a good start then it rained in April/May excessively flooding a lot of ground nesting Bees so we had a vast drop from what I was seeing) so I was hopeful that we would see an increase in foraging Bees over the summer.

Instead I found over the year that we had a very high Butterfly hatch rate huge numbers of Orange Tips, Meadow Browns etc. Unfortunately the spotting of Bumblebees out on the route were few and far between. The ground was baked dry, the grasses were dying back and the Wild Thyme and Sage were burnt off. There was some Cherry Blossom trees but I noticed that although there were a lot of Honey Bees on these flowers there was a distinct absence of Bumblebees of any type.

It did become a bit disheartening as each week I saw less and less Bumblebees, although my Butterfly spotting did become pretty good along with my fitness, as it was quite a climb up and down the hill each week!

Below is a photograph taken in my garden with a trio of Buff Tails and one I am yet to identify. A bit of an ironic twist when I had been walking my route that afternoon.

The one thing I felt really positive about is that despite my lack of Bumblebees in the “wild” I had always insisted on growing a variety of flowers in my garden and the ironic thing is that I had more Bumblebees in my garden than I saw out walking. Now I am not a flower identifier type of person but I can spot a Bumblebee but am still learning and pretty passionate about these beautiful Bees.

This year I have signed up again and am looking forward to starting again next month. I don’t think people realise how much these Bees contribute to our food supply. They seem to associate Honey bees for pollination but not Bumblebees. These bees are vital to our survival we must do all we can to provide homes, education to the public and gardeners to provide habitats for these Bees.

My neighbour has two bird boxes and both had tree Bumblebees last year she did think I was a bit nuts going around telling her how important they were and that they were not Wasps. It was great to sit at the window and watch the hustle and bustle in the bird box.

So plant those garden plants for the Bees and sit down on a summers day and do some Bumblebee spotting - a great book is “Bumblebees an introduction” Dr Nikki Gammans, Dr Richard Comont, SC Morgan and Gill Perkins (Bumblebee Conservation Trust) or join a local Bee Walk. It's great fun and you never know what you might see!

Kayreen Jones