There are so many fascinating facts about bumblebees
Andy Benson works for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s Pollinating The Peak project, aiming to raise awareness of the links between the countryside, food and bumblebees.
Sum up your job in 3 words:
1 variety
2 discovery 3 important
IGOT into my job in a roundabout way. I did a master’s degree in environment management after doing an undergraduate in product design engineering.
I was a professional volleyball player for a few years. When I retired from that I took stock to decide what I wanted to do.
I’ve always had an interest in the natural world, world so I studied environment management and that led to becoming a geography teacher in secondary school, which I did for four years before I took up this role.
The project I’m on is a much more public-facing arm of the trust. You have a public engagement officer who works with gardening clubs and goes to community events, and me as education officer going into schools.
We spread the message about bumblebees and their problems, and the impact we have as individuals.
As I’m in charge of education, it involves creating educational resources which schools can use.
The programme is in its infancy i so the last five or six s months have mainly been b development.
We have been developing all a sorts of things for the Bumblebee Education Experience, such as designing giant props that are used in the show, and developing d laboratory workshop experiments and resources to use in the classroom c as well.
We also do a bit of management work and survey work, which involves doing d “bee walks”. You set up a transect and walk that once a month, recording the bumblebees you see.
These are for members of the public as well, and we offer training to organisations, volunteers and anybody who wants to take part in the bee walks.
My job varies so much, so no two days are ever the same, though my hours are 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.
I think particularly the spring and summer months are very busy in terms of getting out and about and speaking to members of the public and sharing the importance of bees.
I started in the post in April and I’ve not stopped since!
The trust is about trying to conserve bumblebees.
There wasn’t a lot of robust scientific data, so the aim is to solve that problem and build a really strong national picture of what’s happening with the different species.
Using that scientific data really informs us in the best way to conserve bumblebees.
I certainly feel that the public consciousness of bees has risen a lot and I aim to build on that.
People generally know that bees are important, but often they aren’t aware about the fact there are different types of bees and they do different types of jobs.
Often honeybees get a lot of press in terms of the importance they have in pollination and things like that. They are very important, but if bumblebees weren’t around I think that would leave a pretty big void.
They are great to work with and promote because there are so many fascinating facts about them that people aren’t aware of.
You can grab a child or an adult’s attention really easily by sharing some of this information and telling them about this creature.
I think that’s definitely the most rewarding part of my job – actually feeling like you’re making a difference.
Find out more at www.bumblebeeconservation.org.