Bumblebee ID NHSN

NHSN Bumblebee Project – Android ID app

In 2019 the Natural History Society of Northumbria is undertaking a survey of bumblebees in the North East of England, as the number of records is very patch. It is hoped to produce a new atlas of bumblebees in Northumberland Naturalist as a result. You can read all about the project at http://www.nhsn.ncl.ac.uk/news/take-part-in-the-nhsn-bumblebee-project/

Identifying bumblees has been made a little easier for you by Hamza Zaib, a Stage 2 undergraduate working with Roy Sanderson on a 2-week placement. Hamza has based his app on information in “Field Guide to Bumblebees of Great Britain and Ireland” by Mike Edwards and Martin Jenner, and we thank Mike Edwards for permission to adapt his key so that it works in the app. As well as helping you identify bumblebees, the app also records your latitude and longitude (and you can tag habitat information) so you can submit your records to iRecord https://www.brc.ac.uk/irecord/ Alternatively you can click the ‘submit’ button in the app to email your record to our email address, and Roy Sanderson will try and upload them all later (not tested yet!).

Well done to Hamza for getting so much done from scratch in just 2 weeks of work. You can download his app for your Android phone if you search on Google Playstore by searching for “Bumblebee ID NHSN” (quotes needed) or via https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_bbeenhsn.BeeID  Obviously, this software has not been fully tested, so probably contains bugs, but hope it helps everyone on their survey work!