As walkers, often venturing into wild and remote places, we can play an important role in the conservation of rare species that many people will never come across, but why bother with bumblebees? Here, Annie Ives – hillwalker and professional bumblebee-bagger as Project Officer for Bumblebee Conservation Trust – explains why these precious, mountain-dwelling pollinators deserve a place in our hearts and how we can help them when we are exploring the hills.
Following a faint footpath (or is it a deer track?!) through knee-high heather, I hear a distinctive low hum. Automatically, my eyes join my ears, tuning in to the direction of the sound. There she is! A bright, orange-bottomed, hairy bumblebee, skipping haphazardly between flowers on the low-lying shrub. “Wait! A Blaeberry bumblebee!” I shout to my partner who is traipsing on ahead of me. He sighs wearily… “OK, but be quick, or we’ll never get to the top!”…
Taking out my phone, I snap a picture as it flies off in to the wind. It takes less than two minutes to open up the iRecord app, type in the bumblebee species I’ve seen and upload my photo. The app automatically finds my grid reference; I save the draft record ready to upload on my return to civilization and job done – buoyed with energy, I set off again at double pace up the hill.
This represents a fairly typical day out in the hills for me and my long-suffering partner who, after a decade or so of waiting on me chasing bumblebees, eventually came round to the joys of the insect world! Now, on his solo trips, he sends me photos of all the interesting creatures and critters he comes across.
Perhaps you keep a log on Walkhighlands of all the Scottish peaks that you’ve reached, but have you ever thought about logging your wildlife sightings in the hills? Recording your sightings is a practical way to contribute to knowledge and conservation – as walkers and mountaineers, we are in a good position to collect valuable information from areas that are inaccessible to many people. This summer, I’m asking the outdoor community to help in recording and reporting sightings of a distinctive bumblebee – the Blaeberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola) – to help us understand how this rare species is faring in the Cairngorms National Park and wider Scotland.
There are around 20 different species of bumblebee found in Scotland. These wild bees’ nest in tussocks of grass, abandoned vole burrows, and old, dead trees. In our wider landscape, they pollinate wildflowers and trees, producing fruits and seeds which feed small mammals and birds, which are eaten by bigger animals in turn, and so on. Bumblebees and other pollinators underpin whole ecosystems. Without them, our environment would be less healthy, less colourful and less diverse.
But bumblebees are under threat, with loss of habitat causing extensive declines. In the past century, two bumblebee species have been declared extinct and a further eight species (including the Blaeberry bumblebee) have been designated as conservation-priority species. Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s national monitoring scheme showed that 2024 was the worst year on record for bumblebee numbers. Worryingly for the Scottish bumblebees which share our hills, studies suggest that upland species are declining at a significantly faster rate than their counterparts in the southern lowlands. To best protect and conserve these precious pollinators we need to understand exactly where they are found and how they are doing in these areas.
That Blaeberry bumblebee – also known as the Bilberry or Mountain bumblebee – is an upland-specialist, most at home in cool heaths over 300m above sea level where it keeps our moorlands flowering and blaeberry blooming with its pollinator superpowers. Its scientific name, Bombus monticola, means the ‘highlander’ or ‘mountaineer’ bumblebee and harks back to the first bumblebees to exist – cold-adapted, mountain-dwelling species which evolved in the Himalaya. The Blaeberry bumblebee is small but bright, and easily recognisable to those lucky hillwalkers that come across one. Round, hairy and roughly the size of a thumbnail, they have bold fiery orange-red hairs on their tail, extending more than halfway up their lower body (abdomen), a soft yellow band on their collar and another just behind their wings, all against a background of black. It’s the extent of the bright orange-red tail that helps the Blaeberry bumblebee stand out from similar bumblebees, none of which have more than half of the abdomen covered in red hair.
Although they are generally found in upland areas, Blaeberry bumblebees can pop up in unexpected places including gardens, agricultural fields and road verges close to hills or moorland so keep an eye out from car-park to summit! They will often be seen feeding from flowers including blaeberry, heather, white clover, thistles and ragwort, and are most active between May and July.
To turn your bumblebee sightings into a valuable ‘biological record’, you need to note four key pieces of information: what you saw (species, with a photo if possible), when you saw it (date), where you saw it (6-figure grid reference) and who saw it (your name).
My favourite app for making your wildlife sightings count is iRecord. It automatically fills in your grid reference, lets you take or upload a photo, and – once submitted – the record is verified by a local expert, before feeding into a publicly-available national database that can be accessed by anyone interested in what species are found where such as conservation groups, local authorities, planning committees, students and researchers.
I’d encourage you to record any Blaeberry bumblebees that you see, wherever you are. Every record submitted helps build understanding of this beautiful and bright bumblebee and supports its conservation. I’m keen to hear about sightings in new areas where this species has never been recorded before, especially in the Cairngorms National Park where I work on a Bumblebee Conservation Trust project, training people to identify and survey for bumblebees. Here’s my top pick of the peaks across the Cairngorms which have the right habitat for Blaeberry bumblebees, but no records at all. If you’re heading to these peaks over the summer, could you be the first to bag a bumblebee in these hills?
Top Munros
Mullach Clach a’ Bhlair (NN882927)
Geal-charn (NN596782) & A’Mharconaich (NN604762)
Meall Chuaich (NN716878)
Carn Bhac (NO051832)
Mount Keen (NO409869)
Top Corbetts
Conachcraig (NO279865)
Leathad an Taobhain (NN821858)
Brown Cow Hill (NJ221044)
Carn Mor (NJ265183)
Sgor Mor (NO007914)
For more information about Blaeberry bumblebees and how to record your sightings, please visit: https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bumblebee-bagging-in-the-cairngorms/
If you have any questions about bumblebees or would like help identifying a bumblebee, you can contact me at enquiries@bumblebeeconservation.org