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Getting Started:
Full guidance document - the BeeWalk manual - includes fully-illustrated walk-throughs of everything you'll need to do on the website
Quick start guide - a quick step by step guide to getting up and running with BeeWalk
Health and Safety guidance - guidance on carring out bumblebee surveys with your health and safety in mind
Data Policy - BeeWalk data sharing policy
Habitat & Land use list (for more details on the EUNIS habitat classification system used, go here)
Photography guide - to help you take pictures of bumblebees that will maximise the chances of having them identified
YouTube guidance videos - short videos guiding you through the website
Identifying Bumblebees:
Identifying the Big 8 - a guidance video on getting started with identification of our common bumblebee species
Big 8 ID guide - A4 guide to our common bumblebee species (pdf download)
The Natural History Museum's (Paul Williams') bumblebee section (includes colour pattern keys)
Steve Falk's Guide to the Bumblebees of Warwickshire covers the 17 species found in that county, including all 6 cuckoo species (pdf download)
iSpot, a brilliant website for ID of anything wild
If you prefer books, we recommend these (incidentally, every time you use this link to access Amazon.co.uk, we receive a donation for 8% of your total shop)
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s first book, covering field ID of all 25 British bumblebee species and based on ten years’ experience of training beginners in bumblebee ID
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Falk, S (2015) Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain & Ireland (Field Guides). British Wildlife Publishing. ISBN 978-1910389034
This in-depth book provides a comprehensive guide to all bee species with the addition of keys, including excellent coverage of bumblebees. Beautifully illustrated by Richard Lewington.
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Edwards, M. & Jenner, M. (2009). Field Guide to the Bumblebees of Great Britain & Ireland. Ocelli Ltd. ISBN 0954971310
An excellent pocket guide, including a quick colour pattern key to UK species
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Prys-Jones, O. E. and Corbet, S. A. (2011 - revised edition). Bumblebees (Naturalists' Handbook). Pelagic Publishing. ISBN 1907807063
A really useful book with a slightly more scientific leaning than Edwards & Jenner, including full keys (inc genitalia)
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Benton, T (2006) Bumblebees. Collins New Naturalist Library 98. Harper Collins. ISBN 0007174500
An excellent in-depth summary, including species descriptions and a very good key to British bumblebees.
Surveying equipment:
Bumblebees sometimes need close examination to be reliably identified to species, which means catching them. Any butterfly net should be sufficient, but probably the best is a large kite net. A queen marking cage, used by beekeepers to paint a mark on queen honeybees, can also be useful to hold your bee without harming it while you identify it. There are many entomological suppliers online:
