We need you! Join us for the citizen scientist part of Better-B!

Urbanisation, climate change and the loss of biodiversity due to the expansion of agriculture and livestock farming may force bees and other pollinating insects to share food sources.

Recording the different pollinating insects as a function of time and location will provide an overview of the quantities of food sources available and the nesting opportunities for bumblebees, solitary bees, hoverflies and other insects, and will therefore help us to understand the extent to which the environment is favourable to pollinating insects.

 

As citizen scientists we kindly ask you to count and report minimally 2 times a week pollinating insects. On the BeePlants website, you will find a list of plants and insect to report, and instructions for submitting your observations. Please stick to the same flowers and location during the blooming phase of that plant. In this way, we can record the visiting insects as a function of location, date, observation period, time of the day, weather conditions and land use.

These photos of honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees, and hoverflies will help you to discriminate between the pollinating insects on the flowers.

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Honeybee (photo: WageningenUR)
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Bumblebee (photo: WageningenUR)
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Hoverfly
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Solitary bee (photo: Torben Overgaard)
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Other pollinating insect (photo: Sjef Van der Steen)

Better-B has received funding from the European Union, the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government's Horizon Europe funding guarantee (grant number 10068544).

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, European Research Executive Agency (REA), SERI or UKRI. Neither the European Union nor the granting authorities can be held responsible for them.

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