Page 15 - Bumblebee Conservation Trust Buzzword Magazine July 2020

How volunteers

support the UK’s

bumblebees

Jack Reid, the Trust’s Outreach and
Volunteering Officer, supports all our
volunteers who do not live in or near one of
our project areas. Here, Jack provides a brief
insight into how our volunteer team have
adapted to supporting bumblebees during
COVID-19.
The Trust’s national volunteering scheme patches in their gardens, an area to
has grown to 1,100 registered volunteers, grow wild for bumblebees.
who support our work to conserve the Another volunteer Betsy Vulliamy,
UK’s bumblebees in different ways. Most spread the word on how to create
frequently, this support is through delivering welcoming bumblebee nesters
talks or workshops to members of the public, (below), encouraging people to
lending a hand at gardening shows, or give bumblebees a home in their
simply sharing their love and enthusiasm for gardens – and people very quickly
bumblebees. started doing the same!
In March, the Trust made the difficult decision
to halt its volunteering outreach activity, in To create a bumblebee
order to prioritise the safety of our volunteers home visit www.
and wider public. While this meant that bumblebeeconservation.org/
our volunteers couldn’t take on their usual bumblebee-nests/ or visit
activities, many found creative ways to
continue to support bumblebees! www.bumblebeeconservation.
org/volunteering-opportunities/
Some Trust volunteers have continued to for voluteering information
safely deliver talks through online meeting
apps like Zoom, providing basic bumblebee
ID training.
Others, like Andy Beebee (top right), have
created a display to offer bumblebee-friendly
wildflower seeds, some they had already, and
some from their own gardens, to members of
the public on their daily exercise, encouraging
people to garden for bumblebees.
Many of our volunteers have been in touch to
tell us how they’ve been creating wildflower
14 15