The shrill carder bee, Bombus sylvarum is the UK’s rarest bumblebee and was spotted at an Urban Buzz site at Hendre Lake, St Melons, Cardiff. According to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, in the 1900s the shrill carder bee was seen throughout most of England and Wales. Since then populations have declined quickly, and nowadays there are only seven separate populations left.
Sinead Lynch, Conservation Officer, for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said; “The record of Shrill carder bee at Hendre Lake is a really exciting find. This species is very threatened in the UK and its distribution is very limited. It is a distinctive bee with a high pitched buzz, it seemed to be enjoying the abundant wildflowers around Hendre Lake” making this new discovery an interesting sight upon the lake.
Buglife’s Urban Buzz Project in Cardiff is an event aimed to discover which species of bumblebee were in this area and to support individuals wishing to take part in their national recording scheme BeeWalk.
BeeWalkers of the BeeWalk play a vital role in monitoring how bumblebee populations change through time, detecting early warning signs of population declines, and- ultimately, inform how to manage the countryside.
Buglife, which is part of the Invertebrate Conservation Trust, is the only charity in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, and is actively working to save Britain’s rarest bugs, bees, butterflies, ants, worms, beetles and many more invertebrates.
Buglife’s Cardiff Urban Buzz project is a multi-organisational Buglife initiative funded by the Biffa Award. The Biffa award has been supplying grants totalling more than £156 million to thousands of worthwhile community and environmental projects across the UK since 1997.
SOPHIE REES
Urban Buzz info: https://www.buglife.org.uk/urban-buzz/cardiff
Buglife Facebook page: Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust.
Buglife’s website: www.buglife.org.uk and Twitter: @buzz_dont_tweet