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Nikki Gammans talk on Bumble Bees
On the 26th October, following our AGM The Lynsted with Kingsdown Society had an interesting talk from Dr Nikki Gammans. Nikki works for the BumbleBee Conservation Trust ( BBCT) and gave us a very informative talk on bumblebees. We were told how there are around 250 species of bumblebees worldwide. Around 25 of these species are native to the UK and that 3 of the UK s’ species are now extinct, and that most bumblebees are threatened by habitat loss. She stressed how important bumblebees are for pollination and without them how the quality of fruit would suffer. They are particularly hardy so are able to operate in colder temperatures than other pollinators and are also super efficient as they perform what is called ‘buzz pollination’ where they vibrate inside the flower to dislodge pollen and pollinate.
Nikki showed us how to identify different bumblebees by their different colour markings and how some bumblebees are social and live in colonies, with only the queens surviving the winter to start a new colony as soon as the weather starts to warm in the spring. Other species are solitary such as the Shrill Carder bumblebee, the BBCT are doing work with this bee in Pembrokeshire and Cuckoo bumblebees that copy the markings of social bumblebees and enter the nests where they lay their eggs, and the unsuspecting social bees look after them.
Different types of bumblebees have different tongue lengths so they can feed from a large variety of flower species, with the long tongued bees particularly threatened. Nikki is heading a team that is attempting to reintroduce one of these long tongued species, the short haired bumblebee ‘Bombus Subterranus’, to Dungeness RSPB reserve. She told us about their original plan to bring some back from New Zealand, where they had been introduced from the UK. This proved to be too problematic so the team now plan to start introducing these bees from a thriving population in Sweden early next year.
Nikki has offered to show us round the RSPB reserve at Dungeness next summer and to teach us some bumblebee identification. We plan to book a day in early June 2012 so anyone who is interested please get in touch as this will be great opportunity to observe these essential and fascinating insects.
Neil Anderson
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