Dr Richard Comont, the science manager at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, said this was due to the already dwindling numbers of bumblebees in the UK being affected by further obstacles like changes to the weather: “We’ve got smaller, weaker populations of a lot of these bumblebees because of long-term habitat changes.
The poor spring and early summer weather severely affected many species in their most vulnerable period, the colony establishment stage, where queen bumblebees function as single mothers and must feed themselves and their growing larvae while also incubating the nest.
Other species affected include the garden bumblebee, tree bumblebee, southern cuckoo bumblebee and buff-tailed bumblebee.
As weather conditions improved in July and August, bumblebees were able to stage a partial recovery but 2024 still had the second-worst July and August counts since the trust’s records began in 2011.
All of the stuff you see about planting flowers in your garden, letting wildflowers grow, not using pesticides; all of that standard advice around increasing pollinator populations, not just bumblebees, that will allow us to have larger populations of pollinators.”.
