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VIDEO: Video showing the movement of tagged bees in a garden, as detected by the monochrome Raspberry Pi camera view more
Credit: Video by Michael Smith
A team of researchers from the University of Sheffield and The Bumblebee Conservation Trust have been trialling new, low-cost ways to monitor bee species in the UK, by dressing bees in high visibility retroreflective vests. This novel research will be presented at the British Ecological Society s virtual Festival of Ecology.
Researchers attached retroreflective tags to seven species of wild bee and to a commercially bred UK bumblebee subspecies. Then, the foraging behaviour and 3D flight path of various bees was monitored using the web interface of a custom-built, real time tracking system.
Help bugs and bees in Caithness with B-Lines By David G Scott
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Updated: 14:17, 10 December 2020
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This week, conservation charity Buglife is launching a B-Lines map for the Highlands that could help the dwindling numbers of great yellow bumblebees found in Caithness.
B-Lines is the charity s response to the decline of bees and other pollinating insects and provides a plan for how to reconnect the country s wild places by creating a network of wildflowers across the land.
Bombus distinguendus, the great yellow bumblebee. Declining numbers have made it one of the UKâs rarest bee species. Picture: Nick Owens