The Bee Hive!

Bees are important for biodiversity as they provide one of the most recognisable ecosystem services – pollination – which enables food production to help us survive and the maintenance of trees and plants to provide habitats for other plants and animals.

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.

To recognise the importance of bees, 20 May is officially recognised as World Bee Day and it is a day when we celebrate bees and encourage all budding nature detectives to play their part to help to protect them by building your very own Bee Hotel or Bee Garden – download your guide below!

We also encourage everyone to record their sightings of bees, as well as other important species, with the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording.  A new recording scheme for pollinators has been developed and is championed by Biodiversity Ireland, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and a range of other partners which also provides further information on bees and pollinators.