Volunteers all abuzz after rare visitors are found in upper Teesdale

A TWO-day course to train volunteers in how to recognise different bees paid immediate dividends when two species rare to the upper dale were spotted almost immediately.

After indoor sessions at Newbiggin Village Hall, the group recorded a Barbutt’s cuckoo bee during a walk to Bowlees and a broken belted bumble bee at Langdon Beck.

The introduction to bees workshop was organised by the North Pennines AONB partnership as part of its cold blooded and spineless project.

The event was led by Steven Falk, author of the definitive guide to British bees.

Project co-ordinator Mandy Oliver said the workshop had been devised to the lack of research carried out on bees in the North Pennines.

“We don’t have huge numbers of records and we are not sure what species we have,” she said.

“Bee species are declining and the idea is to get the volunteers out and about recording bees so we have got some information.

“That way we are better informed as to how best to look after habitats.”

Ms Oliver added: “We had some indoor sessions, then we went out with Steven and looked to see what we could find in Teesdale.

“We walked from Newbiggin to Bowlees and came across a Barbutt’s cuckoo bee.

“There has only ever been one record of this species in the North Pennines before. That was last year and taken by one of our volunteers in her garden.

“At Langdon Beck, we were walking along the roadside verges and got a broken belted bumble bee.

“Steven was really excited by this and said it was a more significant species to find,” she said.

“Since then, our volunteers have found the species in Weardale as well.”

Information gathered by the volunteers is put on the Wildwatch site online and shared regionally and nationally.

Volunteers are also undertaking bee walks for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Cold blooded and spineless is a five-year Lottery funded AONB project which runs until 2019.

It aims to train volunteers to gather data on some of the thousands of species of invertebrates present in the North Pennines.

For more information on the cold blooded and spineless project as well as other AONB activities, go to www. northpennines.org