Lancaster Environment Centre and School of Engineering-based start-up “BeeBox” hosted a family-friendly “paint a BeeBox” session at Leighton Moss to encourage children and their families to take care of our native bumblebees.

BeeBox is an innovative new home for bumblebees, conceptualised at Lancaster University by Jenny Roberts (School of Engineering) and Dr Phil Donkersley (Lancaster Environment Centre). Each BeeBox is 3D printed out of a biodegradable wood fibre and has been expertly designed to provide a suitable home for a wide variety of the UK’s native ground-nesting bumblebees, which have recently been in decline as a result of environmental pressures, including both climate change and habitat loss. BeeBox offers hives of bumblebees – which can live in colonies of up to 300 individuals - a safe place to live, providing them with protection from predators and the environment.

The team visited Leighton Moss (an RSPB reserve on the outskirts of Carnforth) on Thursday 31^st July to offer visitors the opportunity to decorate one of their BeeBoxes and learn more about bumblebees and the challenges their populations are currently facing. Over the course of the day, almost 60 attendees – from families with small children, to older patrons who stumbled upon the event whilst undertaking a day’s birding- turned up to have a go at painting a BeeBox and learn more about what we can do to protect these precious pollinators.

A second event was undertaken on Thursday 7^th August, where the BeeBox team went along to engage with even more members of the public in the importance of bumblebee conservation. Despite the poor weather, a further 20 members of the public attended to brighten up the BeeBoxes prior to deployment. The painted BeeBoxes are to be donated to Leighton Moss and situated in prime locations for bumblebees to nest, in the hopes of bolstering their populations within the reserve.

On the success of the painting sessions, Dr Donkersley commented: “It was so wonderful to get the opportunity to showcase BeeBox up at Leighton Moss and run these sessions for the general public. Partnering up with the RSPB means we get to encourage bumblebee conservation on protected land such as Leighton Moss, as well as engaging with the public about what they can do to help bumblebees. We’re particularly excited about deploying BeeBox at Leighton Moss as these will directly feed into our nationwide study of what makes a good location for bumblebee nests – what Professor Dave Goulson of Sussex University once called “the last great mystery of bumblebees””.

BeeBox is now commercially available for people to purchase for their own homes and gardens. If you are interested buying a BeeBox or wish to learn more about the project, please visit the BeeBox website.