Gill Perkins
Q) Can you tell us about you and your role at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust?
This is my dream job; as CEO, I have a finger in every pie, and I have a fabulous ‘helicopter view’ of how the Trust is developing and growing. I often liken myself to a ringmaster in a circus, making sure all the acts come together with no accidents and form a magnificent show. In the case of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, it means that our staff, through their activities, actions and passion, are incredibly impactful and our work, although maybe not as exciting as a trapeze act, is making a difference to our essential bumblebees.
Q) Tell us a bit more about the Trust, how it was formed and its mission?
The Trust was formed in 2006 (20-year birthday party coming up soon) by Professor Dave Goulson and his PhD student Ben Darvill; they had been doing research on bumblebees for years and realised they were in decline. Of the 24 species left, they found we had lost two to extinction, another two were on the edge of extinction, and six were at risk. Setting up the Trust was the beginning of working to reverse those declines and get our wild bees thriving again. We are a science-based, evidence-led charity, and our mission today remains urgent.
Bumblebees are in crisis. We are leading the fight to secure their future.
Q) Why are bumblebees so important and why do we need to do everything we can to help them?
Insects contribute over £700 million per annum to the UK economy and, in doing so, prop up the £108 billion per year food and drink industry in Britain.
As a society, we are increasingly dependent on pollinators. Our food security pretty much depends on them, and in the case of some of our crops, like tomatoes, we are completely dependent on bumblebees as they are the only insects that can pollinate them. Did you know we import approximately 90,000 boxes of commercially farmed bumblebees each year, they underpin our soft fruit industry.
The proportion of global agricultural production that depends on pollinators has increased four-fold since 1961. Much of this dependence is linked to wild pollinators.
Pollinators provide a crucial service to nature and humans. Pollination directly affects the yield and/or quality of 75 per cent of globally important crops. The annual contribution of pollinators to the global economy is estimated at US$ 235–577 billion. At the global scale, approximately half of the value of pollination services to crops comes from wild bees, as opposed to managed species such as the European honeybee Apis mellifera
Q) Can you share with us some of the common misconceptions when it comes to bumblebees?
The Trust did a UK-wide survey of the general public a few years ago, and astonishingly, one of the key data points that came out was 54% of adults didn’t know the difference between honeybees and bumblebees! The biggest misconception is that they are one and the same species!
A lot of corporates, particularly in cities, think that putting a honeybee hive on the roof of their office will in some way tick the biodiversity box, whereas in reality, it does exactly the opposite. Research has shown that, in some situations, beekeeping can have negative consequences for bumblebees (and potentially other pollinators) by increasing competition for food and by passing on diseases. These negative consequences are most marked in areas where there are fewer flowers or higher densities of honeybee hives and could potentially be serious where vulnerable populations of wild bees are present.
When on the wing, bumblebees are within 40 minutes of starvation, and they only drink nectar and eat pollen, so they are really not after us humans to sting or annoy. In fact, they rarely sting, and then only when severely aggravated!
Q) What simple things can people be doing in their gardens to help support bumblebees?
I would encourage people to grow flowers rich in nectar and pollen. These are normally the old-fashioned ones like herbs, lavender, foxgloves, white dead nettle and wildflowers like clover — and yes, DANDELIONS — are all great food for bees. Also leave some areas wild and try to reduce the use or stop using pesticides altogether, we really don’t want them used in an urban setting.
If you go to the garden centre, look at the flowers the bees are feeding on and choose those. Bedding plants like begonias, petunias, bizzie lizzies, etc., contain no pollen or nectar and are useless for insects.
I know people like neatness, but try leaving a small area ‘wild’. It might encourage a bumblebee to nest there!
Q) C&B have recently renewed their Business Membership, can you tell us more about this and how it supports the charity?
We really value our corporate members, and Corney & Barrow are brilliant at thinking up creative ways to raise funds for the Trust to carry on their important work. A business membership is one way of showing your support for the work we do, and not only that but walking the walk, not just talking the talk! We can also support their ESG strategies by, for example, encouraging any land — small patches as important as park-size pieces — to be managed for pollinators.
Collaboration with our business partners allows us to reach not only their staff but their customers and clients, and through these collaborations, we can spread the word (like pollen), about how important bumblebees are and actions you can take. I have known for a long time that money in the bank doesn’t save bumblebees; people do, by taking action, and when people understand how important these creatures are, they are inspired to act for them.
At the conclusion of the session, His Majesty The King met representatives of charities and organisations that have been supported by and partnered with The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund, in celebration of four decades since its establishment.
Clarence House, London
Photo by Ian Jones.
Q) The 20th May sees us celebrate World Bee Day, tell us why this day is important and what you will be doing to celebrate?
May is an exciting month for us at the Trust; we have Wildflower Week and World Bee Day and for the third year running, we are exhibiting at the Chelsea Flower Show — hoping for gold this year. World Bee Day is a very important day, it gives us the opportunity to spread the word about our work and the impact we are having. It also gives us an opportunity to celebrate the impact we have had with stories, articles, and blogs like this one. We tend to celebrate bumblebees every day, but on the 20th, we can really showcase their wonderfulness far and wide. I may also celebrate with a glass of something from our favourite independent Wine merchant!
Q) Finally, can you tell us the different ways that people can get involved with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to help show their support?
I’d love for people to talk about bumblebees to their children to learn about them and inspire and encourage our young people to love and cherish them. We can all play a role in showing our children and grandchildren how wonderful and essential they are — no bumblebees, no pizza!
Grow bumblebee-friendly flowers — even if it’s just a pot of lavender — it will make a difference.
Bee the change, pledge to bee the change — we have an amazing amount of free resources on our Bee the Change site https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/beethechange/
You can join the Trust — our supporters help us to reverse the decline in bumblebees https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/join/
And, of course, you can donate; whatever you can afford will help us in our work. https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/donate/
I think there are few more important issues than communicating to society, to our future generation, and to everyone why protecting nature matters. for me, as CEO of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, it is why pollinators matter and why the Bumblebee should matter to all of us — personally. Thank you, C&B, for giving me this space to share my love of bumblebees.