Celebrate World Bee Day

Today (20th May) marks World Bee Day so we are calling all budding nature detectives to do their bit to help the bees by building your very own bee hotel or by trying your hand at recording.

On the island of Ireland, we have 21 Bumblebee species, one type of honeybee and 77 solitary bee species including mining bees, leaf cutter bees, mason bees and even cuckoo bees! Around half of these species are currently in decline and sadly 3 bee species have gone extinct here in the last 80 years. But you can help by creating suitable habitats in your back gardens!

We encourage everyone to report their sightings or records of not only bees but also any species of interest they see close to home, such as red squirrels, the cuckoo or butterflies by following this link https://www2.habitas.org.uk/records/home

If you are keen to do more, a new recording scheme for pollinators has just been launched and championed by Biodiversity Ireland, Northern Ireland Environment Agency and a range of other partners. Follow this link https://pollinators.ie/record-pollinators/bees/ for more information on bees and pollinators.