Bumblebee Conservation Trust

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Bumblebee Conservation Trust

13/06/2026

The Buff-tailed bumblebee has made the shortlist to feature on the new banknotes – and you can help make it happen! 🐝💵

Why this “noteworthy” bumblebee deserves your vote:

🍅 Bumblebees are pollinator powerhouses. They are essential for pollinating many of our wildflowers and crops, including lots of fruits and vegetables.

🌾 Pollinators do an astonishing amount of work for free. Replacing their role in farming with hand pollination would cost roughly £1.8 billion. Without bumblebees, many of the foods we eat would become harder to grow and more expensive to buy.

💵 Giving the Buff-tailed bumblebee a place on the new Bank of England notes would shine a light on why bumblebees need protecting. Across the UK, bumblebee populations have plummeted over time, with two species already lost in the last 100 years, and many others in serious decline today.

This is your chance to keep bumblebees in people’s minds … and wallets!

Vote for the Buff-tailed bumblebee: https://ow.ly/tXzj50ZarTt

Already voted? Share this post far and wide and help put a true national treasure in the treasury.

11/06/2026

Do these look like bumblebee bouncers to you? 🐝⛔

Some bumblebees will stand guard at the entrance to their nest and check inbound bumblebees for intruders.

💂‍♂️ This duty is usually entrusted to a pair of bigger workers – sometimes for several days – and is known as ‘perching’. This is when a bumblebee stands motionless with their antenna raised, like a lookout.

🪪 Incoming bumblebees are identified by their cuticular lipids – a waxy coat covering the exoskeleton. This acts a bit like a pollinator passport or carry-on colony credentials. It tells a bumblebee whether another bumblebee is from the same colony or a different one.

💰 Sometimes bumblebees from other colonies will attempt to sneak into the nest and steal resources, like stores of pollen and nectar. Other times cuckoo bumblebees, much like the bird, might try to muscle in and take over the colony.

Different intruders require different responses. Bumblebee workers will usually defend their colony by:

🏃 Patrolling – running around the nest to search for the source of a disturbance.
😮‍💨 Abdominal pumping – a bit like rapid breathing, this moves oxygen to the muscles in readiness to fly.
⏰ Continuous buzzing – the vibrations could warn others in the colony of a threat, like an alarm bell, while the sound might also be intended to scare away the intruder.
🪮 Grooming – bumblebees clean themselves by grooming, but it can also be used to destress after a disturbance.

Have you ever seen bumblebees doing this?

09/06/2026

June is a special month for UK bumblebees – the Big Eight are joined by more of our rare and less common species 💛

👑 This month, most of these rare and less common queens will produce their first daughters – the workers 💼

🎱 For the Big Eight, many queens and their worker daughters will be joined by new males 🚹

What bumblebees have you spotted recently? How many species have you seen so far this year?

07/06/2026

Your quick guide to help you tell apart the common bumblebees you spot this month 🐝👀

What bumblebees have you spotted recently?

06/06/2026

Listen up, bumblebees! You have a busy June ahead 🐝📝

👑 Bumblebee queens emerge from hibernation in spring, when rising temperatures and longer days wake them up.
💤 When a queen emerges, she spends some time resting to wake up properly.
🌷 Once fully awake, she feeds on flowers to gain energy.
🏠 Then begins the search for a suitable nest site: holes in the ground, long grass, bird boxes and beneath garden sheds.
🌼 Once she has chosen her nest site, the queen will feed on more flowers and lay her first eggs.
🐛 Little white larvae hatch, feed on collected pollen, and then develop into adult workers.
💼 These smaller females carry out work inside and outside the nest.
👑 The queens remain inside the nest, laying more eggs for the next batch of workers.
🚹 Towards the end of a nest, males appear. They feed on nectar and try to mate with queens from other nests.

Hands up if you’ve seen a bumblebee recently? 🙌

📷 Petra Kleinmann

04/06/2026

“Show bee the money!” 🐝💵

The Buff-tailed bumblebee has made the shortlist to feature on the new banknotes – and you can help make it happen!

One of the UK’s most common bumblebees, this iconic insect would serve as a symbol for all 24 of our bumblebee species and the many other pollinators we rely on.

Here’s why we should celebrate them on the new Bank of England notes:

🍅 Bumblebees are essential for pollinating many of our wildflowers and crops, including lots of fruits and vegetables. In the UK, they’re the only insects that can pollinate tomato plants.
💵 Buff-tailed bumblebee queens – the largest in the UK – can weigh up to 0.85g ... exactly the same as a £10 note!
🌾 It would cost roughly £1.8 billion to replace the role pollinators play in farming with hand pollination. Without bumblebees, many of the food we eat would become harder to grow and more expensive to buy.

Vote for the Buff-tailed bumblebee: https://ow.ly/FFiO50Z7bCW

02/06/2026

This we want to say a BIG thank you to our bee-rilliant volunteers 🫶

Last year, almost 1,000 trained volunteers took part in BeeWalk, Britain’s national bumblebee monitoring scheme, walking more than 1,100 routes, which were surveyed a record 7,249 times over the year. The vital data recorded by our BeeWalk volunteers helps shape our conservation efforts and the actions we take for bumblebees 📋🐝

Hundreds more of our volunteers also supported our events and outreach efforts, inspiring thousands of people across the UK to take action for bumblebees.

To every one of our volunteers, your efforts have had a real and lasting impact. Thank you 💙

01/06/2026

You can spot the Big Eight in June 🎱🐝

Of the UK’s 24 bumblebee species, these eight are the most common. This month, many queens and workers (females) will be joined by new males 👑💼🚹

👑 Bumblebee queens begin to emerge from hibernation in spring, when rising temperatures and longer days awaken them from their winter snooze in the soil.
💤 When a queen emerges, she spends some time resting in order to wake up properly.
🌷 Once fully awake she feeds on flowers to gain energy.
🏠 Then begins the search for a suitable nest site: holes in the ground, long grass, bird boxes and beneath garden sheds.
🌼 Having chosen her nest site, the queen will feed on more flowers and lay her first batch of eggs.
🐛 Little white larvae hatch, feed on collected pollen, and then develop into adult workers.
💼 These smaller females carry out work inside and outside the nest.
👑 Queens remain inside the nest, laying more eggs for the next batch of workers.
🚹 Towards the end of a nest, males are produced and leave. They do not collect pollen. Instead, they spend their time feeding on nectar and trying to mate with queens from other nests.

What bumblebees have you spotted recently? Are you seeing more or less than last year?

🔎 Brush up on your bumblebee identification skills: https://ow.ly/ZT0i50Z1xcB

31/05/2026

What colour would your last meal turn you? 🎨

🎥 Helen King

30/05/2026

Help us caption this photo 🐝

Don't get tongue-tied, we want to hear your best captions 💛

📷 Les Moore
🔎🐝 Early bumblebee

Address

Beta Centre, Stirling University Innovation Park
Stirling
FK94NF

Website

http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/

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