How many bumblebees are there in your garden?

CHESHIRE Wildlife Trust is calling on Warrington people to help build a picture of the status of the bumblebee population in the area.
The conservation charity has teamed up with RECORD, the local biological records centre, which is producing a bumblebee distribution atlas for Cheshire, and wants people you to record their sightings.
Chief executive Charlotte Harris said: “Bees and other pollinators such as moths and butterflies have lost much of their habitat in the past 60 years, including a staggering 97 per cent of wildflower meadows. They’re also under fire from pesticides, habitat loss, intensive agriculture and climate change.
“As the local wildlife trust for Warrington we’re ideally positioned to take practical action to help them across the local area and we already do lots of work across our reserves to restore and improve habitat for these vital species. But we want to do more, which is why we’re taking the first steps of a long-term pollinator campaign so that we can help these vital insects for years to come.
“Once we know exactly what the picture is like for bees in Cheshire, we can plan how we can best manage our own reserves for these amazing pollinators and identify areas where we can join up the gaps to create ‘bee roads’ for pollinators across the county.”
On Sunday, July 17 the Trust wants as many people as possible to take part in its first Big Garden Bee Count and to report what type of bees they see on this day.
Tony Parker, chairman of RECORD, said: “Don’t worry if you don’t know a honeybee from a bumblebee,
“Sending sightings is simple. The team at RECORD just needs to know what you’ve seen, where, and when.”
Identification sheets can be downloaded from www.cheshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/beescount where there is also a link to a special online form to send sightings.
It isn’t necessary to wait until July 17 to send findings. RECORD is already collecting data and sightings can be submitted until the end of September.