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Did you know that there are more than 20,000 species of bee on the planet? And 100 different species just in Ireland? Did you know that only a few species live in social groups and make honey, that only female bees sting, and that stinging isn’t a fatal endeavour for most bee species?

When people think of bees, they tend to focus on honey, hives and stings, and various oft-quoted myths. They don’t realise that bees are a hugely diverse group of animals that have incredibly interesting lives.

Bees are a morphologically diverse group of insects – ranging from species that are a tiny ~2mm long, to species that are a massive 19x that size (about 38mm long). They are ecologically diverse too – some nest in the ground, others in holes in trees, and some even in the nests of other bees (these are called kleptoparasites, behaving in a similar way to cuckoo birds – killing the rightful occupants and laying their own eggs).

The one thing they virtually all have in common is that they need flowers to feed from – they get their energy and make honey from nectar, and get protein for growth and repair from pollen. Except ‘vulture bees’, which are a small group of closely related North American stingless bee species that feed on rotting meat. They use the meat as their protein source, but still make honey from nectar. So all bees need flowers to complete their live cycles (and, many flowers need bees too).

They are really an amazing group of insects, much more than just honey and hype.

And they have become cool. They adorn furnishings, clothing, crockery, water bottles – the list is endless. They typify pollinators – animals that move pollen between plants and enable seed and fruit production – and so are important to our agricultural system. And have become foci for conservation initiatives all over the world. They even have their own day in the year (20^th May – World Bee Day).

But strangely enough, we don’t know everything there is to know about bees. Far from it. Most of what we know comes from a small handful of managed species – the honeybee, the buff-tailed bumblebee, the red mason bee. Even in Ireland, we don’t know nearly enough about most of our bees. When the most recent conservation assessment of Ireland’s bees was made in 2006, 16 species couldn’t be assigned a threat status because we didn’t know enough about them. Of the bees that we did know enough about, more than a third of them turned out to be threatened with extinction.

Want to learn more about Ireland’s bees? Have a go at our World Bee Day #BeeBingo, and look out for eight species active at the moment!

Since then, concerted efforts have been made to find out more about Ireland’s bees, and to protect them. Lots of research has been done (with eight PhDs completed on Irish bees in the past 12 months), and lots of practical conservation efforts undertaken, mostly under the auspices of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan.

Trinity College Dublin has played a leading role in this. Professor Jane Stout in the School of Natural Sciences has been researching bees, their behaviour, and the causes and consequences of their decline for the past two decades. In this time, she and her research group have published dozens of scientific papers, and Prof. Stout co-founded the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan with Trinity alumnus, Dr Úna FitzPatrick at the National Biodiversity Data Centre. This has galvanised action the length and breadth of Ireland to protect and restore pollinators.

Trinity plays its part in a practical way too – the iconic lawns at the front gate have been transformed into ornamental meadows and low- and no-mow regimes have been implemented in other areas to allow wildflowers to flourish. Even in the city centre, both of these approaches can provide habitat for bees and other wildlife.

So this World Bee Day, take a closer look at these amazing insects, they are, of course, important pollinators, helping to maintain ecosystems and produce human food crops, but they are also fascinating and wonderful creatures in their own right.

About the author: Professor Jane Stout is Vice-President for Biodiversity and Climate Action at Trinity College Dublin, and has spent most of her professional career studying bees – their ecology, conservation and importance to people.

Did you know that there are more than 20,000 different species of bee worldwide and about 100 different species in Ireland alone?

To help raise awareness about some of our local species, post-doctoral researchers Alison O’Reilly and Cian White have developed a game… Bee Bingo. It’s easy to play – there are eight different bee species to spot (photos and information on all in the images below) – these bees are all out and about at this time of year, so find somewhere flowery, sheltered and take a closer look at the insects visiting the flowers – can you spot all eight?

If you do see them all, and reach a “full hive”, then share your accomplishments on social media #beebingo and tag us @CampusBuzzTCD.

Good luck and have fun!

“Green future”, “Green initiatives”, “Green energy” – References to the colour green are impossible to avoid if we want to preserve, or even improve, the environment. It is clear that “going green” is in. However, there are many shades of green. There is the bright electric green commonly promised on renewable energy advertisements and infographics. There is also the deep forest green often pledged in biodiversity conservation campaigns. But, can we generate an environmental plan that actually delivers an appealing blend of both electric and deep forest green?

In our recent work, we set out to determine what the optimal shade of green for Ireland’s future is. Like many countries, Ireland recognises the need to urgently transition to a low-carbon economy to avoid the devastating impacts of unimpeded climate change. To meet our decarbonisation goals, Ireland has developed a Climate Action Plan¹. The goal of the Climate Action Plan is to achieve a net zero carbon energy system for Irish society by 2050. Specific actions include increasing the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources from 30% to 80% by 2030, establishing 8,000 hectares of newly planted trees per year, and funding the restoration and rehabilitation of peatlands. So, the solution is quite straightforward— convert all current land uses to renewable energy infrastructure, new forests, and peatlands. Problem solved.

Not so fast. In addition to the climate crisis, we are also facing an equally urgent biodiversity crisis. These two green problems can’t be solved independently. The biodiversity and climate crises are entwined in a complex system of feedbacks, with biodiversity part of the Earth system regulating climate, and climate in turn determining biodiversity patterns and trajectories. Ireland is a trailblazer in acknowledging that a synergistic solution is needed, and in May 2019, became the 2^nd country worldwide to declare a climate and biodiversity emergency (Dáil Éireann, 2019). However, recognising that climate and biodiversity require a coordinated response is only a first step. Implementation is going to be far more complicated. We need a plan, and we need it fast.

To come up with the plan that would be the best for both climate and biodiversity, we went through the major goals of the Climate Action Plan and reviewed the scientific literature to determine how to meet those objectives in the most biodiversity friendly way possible. We identified the major threats that climate actions, such as increased renewable energy infrastructure, could impose on biodiversity (Figure 1)².

Along the way, we also found that many of the proposed climate actions can be implemented in ways that don’t harm biodiversity but actually promote biodiversity: our “win-wins”. For Ireland, these include increasing offshore wind capacity, rehabilitating natural areas surrounding onshore wind turbines, and limiting the development of solar photovoltaics to where humans have already erected structures, the so-called “built” environment.

Ultimately, biodiversity-friendly renewable energy can be achieved by prioritising renewables that are the least damaging and ensuring that infrastructure development is carried out as sensitively as possible to protect, restore, and enhance biodiversity. This could look different depending on where in the environment we are talking about, which is why choosing an appropriate site for each method is critical – we need a plan!

We hope that this work can form the basis for that plan for Ireland and stimulate broader discussions on what this looks like for other countries. By synergistically mitigating both our climate and biodiversity crises, we can ensure that Ireland’s future is Emerald Green.

About the author: Courtney Gorman is a postdoctoral researcher and project manager for the Nature+Energy project at Trinity College Dublin. She has a PhD in Biology from the University of Konstanz in Germany.

1.         Government of Ireland. Climate Action Plan. https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/ccb2e0-the-climate-action-plan-2019/ (2021).

2.         Gorman, C. E. et al. Reconciling climate action with the need for biodiversity protection, restoration and rehabilitation. Science of The Total Environment 857, 159316 (2023).