People for Bees in Blessington

On Saturday we were hosted by the Blessington Tidy Town group to hold a very successful talk on bees and pollination and outdoor workshop on bee monitoring and identification.

Buff-tail Bumblebee Queen

April has seen some spring weather arrive at long last, bringing some growth for our wildlife. It has also marked the beginning of this year’s People for Bees workshops which have happened in Roscommon, Limerick and Wicklow so far.

It’s always so heartening to see communities really engage with protecting and monitoring their pollinators.

This Saturday, after an informative talk, we headed out into cloudy weather to see what bumblebees we might find. Despite the weather, we netted (and released) three bumblebee queens, a sign of the improving weather, two Buff-Tails and a Common Carder.

People for Bees in Castleconnell

Meanwhile, last weekend we were in Ballintubber in Co Roscommon and found the bees on the heather in the graveyard.

Then that Sunday, in Castleconnell, Co. Limerick there was another great crowd in cozy surroundings who braved damp weather to learn about bees and visited a local beekeeper.

We hope that people who took part feel inspired to keep taking part in bumblebee monitoring and others actions from the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan.

Common Carder Queen

This Common Carder Bumblebee queen was spotted on the day.

There are more People for Bees talks happening in the coming weeks, in Limerick and Cavan, and you can check our Events page to see if there is one near you.

More information about these talks can be found on our People for Bees page.