Eco Eye - Roscommon #EcoEye – Plight of the Bumble Bees on RTE 1 last night featured County Roscommon and a Bumble Bee Monitoring Scheme workshop hosted by Castlecoote Tidy Towns and the National Biodiversity Data Centre last June. I was delighted to organise this workshop and thank Dr. Tomás Murray of the National Biodiversity Data Centre for coming to Roscommon to deliver it and thank Eco Eye for featuring it.
Tidy Towns, community groups and individuals from around the County attended the workshop last June. Flash back to a fabulous warm Summer! Filmed in Castlecoote Village and other parts of Castlecoote Loop of the Suck Valley Way.
The workshop was really informative and we learned more about the Bumble bee monitoring scheme which is a Citizen Scientist Driven Scheme to monitor how our bumble bee population are changing across the year and across years (now in operation 6 years). The scheme engages a network of volunteers to undertake bee surveys which are feed back to the National Biodiversity Data Centre.
To find out more about the scheme and to get involved:
http://www.biodiversityireland.ie/record-biodivers…/surveys/
With one third of Bee Species threatened with extinction in Ireland and sadly with two species already lost - we must choose to take action to save our wild bees. Without Bees one third of our food supply could disappear.
Here’s 5 things you can do in your garden to be Pollinator friendly from #EcoEye Facebook page:
1. Make sure you have at least one flowering food source from spring right through to winter
2. Leave small areas of your lawn uncut to allow clovers to flower
3. Don’t view dandelions as a weed but as a vital spring food source for hungry bees
4. Avoid using pesticides
5. Try to avoid disturbing nesting or hibernating bees in area like long grass, bare soil, dead wood or walls.
Here’s a link to the full All Ireland Pollinator Plan with lots more details- a must read for any Tidy Towns group!
http://www.biodiversityireland.ie/…/All-Ireland%20Pollinato…
BIODIVERSITYIRELAND.IE