We decided to do a special study of bumblebees because we have a book called 'A Sting in the Tale' by a man called Dave Goulson, who started the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. We joined the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and they sent us a load of stuff. They sent Buzzword - a newsletter, Busy Bees - lots of games, car stickers, stickers, badges, postcards, a packet of wildflower seeds, posters and a leaflet to identify the bumblebees we see, and also a whole booklet on how to plant flowers for bumblebees. Check out http://bumblebeeconservation.org/ . On the website we did the Bee kind challenge - which gives you points for the kinds of flowers you have in your garden. We did OK - we scored 1627 - but we thought we could do better!
This is what we found out about bumblebees....
In the UK there are 24 species of bumblebees but only 8 of them are common. They are struggling because there are far fewer flowers in the countryside to give them the pollen and nectar they need to survive. Bumblebees make small nests and they do not store much honey so if there aren't enough flowers they can die. A lot of the food we eat is pollinated by bumblebees - like raspberries, peas, beans, tomatoes, potatoes and lots of other things.
We live north of Inverness, so quite far north in Scotland. We live by a big forest with lots of scots pine trees. It gets really light in summer, almost all night, but it is sometimes quite cold. The spring is later up here than in the south of Scotland, and we are quite high up, so we sometimes have frosty nights even in May. We also get quite strong winds, not as strong as on the west coast, but strong enough to knock trees down sometimes. That means that any flowers we plant have to be hardy.
This is the 10 point plan we wrote down to do to help bumblebees... We have put a star next to the ones we have done so far. We will keep you posted on how many we manage to do.
1. Join the Bumblebee Conservation Trust*
2. Check out how Bee kind our garden is from the BBCT website*
3. Find out what plants bumblebees like*
4. Plant those plants in our garden
5. Learn how to identify different bumblebees
6. Do a bumblebee survey
7. Don't use any pesticides in the garden or any other chemicals that can harm wild creatures*
8. Try to persuade other people to join BBCT, including our friends at school
9. Only buy organic fruit and vegetables and other food - because that way no pesticides have been used that can kill wild bumblebees*
10. Encourage farmers where we live to leave places for wild flowers to grow.
Make your bumblebees happy:)
F & K
No comments:
Post a Comment