Have you seen this Bee?

This Bumblebee, Bombus Hypnorum is common across Europe, but new to the UK. Its presence here was first recognised only in 2001, Reading the description in the first report though makes me wonder why it took the bee so long to get here. It looks as though it may be here to stay as:

• It is widespread across the cool forest zones of the north;


• It seems to cope well in urban areas;


• It has probably increased in population in Belgium and Germany during the last century, where other bees have declined.

If you spot an example of this distictive bee in your garden, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust would be interested to hear from you as they are trying to survey its progress.

Open Access research on bumblebees

I noted the spread of research interest in bumblebees in a recent post, but htere remnains a problem for many people wanting to read such material. Most of it is locked up inside academic journals working with a subscription model. Even researchers themselves may not be able to read the results of each others work if their university does not subscribe to the right journal. For people outside universities there is almost no chance. (OK, you might be able to interest a public library in making an inter-library loan application, but you would have to wait weeks for anything to come through).
This picture is beginning to change as researchers are increasingly making copies of their research available in 'institutional repositories. These copies may not be the polished versions published in the academic journals, but they do contain all the same content.
For Bumblebee research, check out:

• University of Stirling STORRE;


• Univesity of Southampton e-Prints.

If you want a wider range of repositories you can also try:

• OpenDOAR


• Scientific Commons


• OAIster

You should be able to find examples of bumblebee research through searches on ordinary search engines, but since the above examples specialise in open access research, they may give abetter results if you are looking for academic research.