Mole’s Bumblebee trail #4 – Bombus Pratorum Traditional Cache
Mole’s Bumblebee trail #4 – Bombus Pratorum
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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4th in a trail looking for Bumblebees as well as caches
Bombus pratorum - Although known as the “ Early Nesting Bumble Bee” this pretty little Bumble Bee is not the earliest to be seen in the UK but usually one of the first. Also confusingly, there are considerable colour variations but a rough guide is that queens, workers and males all have orangey red tails, and the male has more yellow hair on the thorax and of course the wonderful yellow moustache. They are small , short tongued bees who cannot easily access the nectar from vetches, preferring the shallower flowers of the daisy family, dandelions and in the spring, willow flowers. They are described as having a characteristically rounded dumpy shape.
4th of 5 - This trail has been set in an area where a BBCT (Bumblebee conservation trust) BeeWalk has been laid – this walk is set as part of a survey to collect bumblebee abundance data. There are walks all over the UK which have been set by BBCT volunteers.
The idea of this survey is to set up a fixed-route walk and take monthly recordings – the fixed route is essential in order to get good comparisons.
I have set up this walk for the BBCT and in turn have created this cache trail with 5 caches along the way – there is another cache on the route, being one of the ‘Kent FTF caches’
So between the months of June and October I will be collecting my data – why don’t you have a go at seeing if you can identify different species of bumblebee as you go round – I will identify good spots to look as some will be more abundant with bumblebees than others. If you want to go to a site to help with identification try www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/bumblebees_id.
Now onto the route – this is a 3km walk with parking for a few cars at the start – fishermen do park here too so you may find this full – but there should be other parking nearby – follow the cache trail in order and you will come back to the car park
I only spotted a couple in the corner of the field here - though you may be lucky near to where the 'Kent Curse of the FTF #5' cache which is located between #3 and this one.
please ensure the cache is replaced as found - it is a double pot container
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Onfr bs gerr- fgvpxbsyntr