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Bees & Heatwaves
Project Lead: Yanet Sepulveda
Contact: BuzzClub@sussex.ac.uk
Running: June to August (join at any point)
Why choose this project?
Heatwaves pose significant challenges to many animals, causing them to adapt their activity patterns to avoid thermal stress. For example, some animals shift their activities from daytime to dawn or dusk. However, it remains unclear if bees can adopt similar strategies during hot days. This project aims to explore how bees, including bumblebees, honey bees, and solitary bees, respond to high temperatures and identify the plant species that support them during such extreme conditions. With your help we will be able to answer the following questions:
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a) Do bees change their activity patterns in response to high temperatures?
b) Which plants do they visit during hot days?
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This data will improve our understanding of the real-time impacts of heatwaves on bee populations and help create practical guides to support them in a warming world.
What we found last year
This project was piloted in 2023. With your help, we found that bee abundance was higher before than after heatwaves and that temperature significantly influenced their activity during the study period.
Thanks to the valuable contributions of our participants, we also identified which plants provide resources to bees at different temperatures. For example, glossy abelia was particularly popular with bumblebees and honeybees, while solitary bees really enjoyed the ragwort! We have used this data to create practical guides that provide information on how to support pollinators in a warming world. These guides will soon be available on the Buzz Club website, so please keep an eye out for them!
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Watch our EntoLive on last year's Bees and Heatwaves results here.
How can you help?
We need people around the country to observe bees once a week during the summer months (June to August) and let us know when you saw them, what you saw, and what flowers they liked! This will need to be done only three times a day, once a week. Below are the documents you will need to take part in this project - they will also be emailed to you when you sign up.
What do you get out of it?
During this project you will learn to identify plants and bumblebees, get better acquainted with those in your garden and contribute to essential science! You will be supported throughout by Yanet and Issy via email.