Wanted urgently. A short video clip of a wild bee (NOT a honey bee) visiting a flower - about 30 second is good. This is to go on a Centre for Hydrology and Ecology project for farmers, but the need is urgent - by Monday 8th afternoon. Full acknowledgement will be given, but no payment is available.

If you have something you would be prepared to offer please contact Richard Pywell as soon as possible. rfp@ceh.ac.uk

The planned 2020 Members long weekend meeting in Devon has been postponed until 25th to 28th June 2021

Details here:

BWARS Website User Survey

The BWARS website is several years old and has not kept pace with technological developments. For instance, we know that the current website does not work well on mobile phones. So, BWARS needs to commission a new website but we need to understand how you use the current website, and what you would like to see in a redeveloped website.

We are very keen to hear your views. Your answers will help us prioritise the development of the new website so that it meets your needs.

Bumblebees of North East England, covering Northumberland and County Durham, has been published by the Natural History Society of Northumbria.  Much of the data included was recorded by BWARS members.  Northumbrian Naturalist Volume 87 is available from the NHSN

Steven Falk has produced six very useful "crib Sheets" to help people distinguish the groups of look-a-like bumblebees. They can be downloaded from the Identification Guides page

Download the workshop presentation given by Juho Paukkunen at the BWARS Members' Weekend 2019. The presentation outlines key characters for separating the 13 British species of the cryptic Chrysis ignita group. Juho cautioned that colour characters given in the Nordic and Baltic Chrysididae key (Paukkunen et al., 2015) are not reliable for British specimens:

Juho Paukkunen, Alexander Berg, Villu Soon, Frode Ødegaard and Paolo Rosa. 2015 An illustrated key to the cuckoo wasps (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae) of the Nordic and Baltic countries, with description of a new species.

The 2019 AGM draft programme can be downloaded here

This is a corrected version of the key to Vespidae wasps, issued in the BWARS Newsletter (Spring 2019 issue).

The correction relates to one character which had been transposed in the male Dolichovespula part of the key.

Download the key here

Details of the BWARS AGM and Members' Weekend 2019 can be found in the diary