Is your bee hotel a nursery for pests and disease BTO GBW talk 18 Mar 2017

Garden BirdWatch Ambassadors meeting 18 March 2013 Thetford

The day was hosted by the BTO GBW team, Kate Risley and Claire Boothby. The event was attended by several GBW Ambassadors and I had the great pleasure of meeting them. I listened to some very interesting talks by Kate and Claire, about their BTO work, a thought provoking talk by Dr. Daria Dadam about butterflies and a fascinating presentation by Katharina Seilern-Moy about Garden Wildlife Health. I finished off the morning session with my presentation ”

Is your bee hotel a nursery for pests and disease”  before we broke for a delicious lunch.

Bee hotel looks full. But what’s inside?

Claire commented about my presentation:

“It was a great talk, exploring the little known and fascinating world of the pests inhabiting solitary bee hotels. George is an engaging speaker and his enthusiasm on the subject shines through, along with the amount of work he has put into the study of solitary bees and their pests over the years. The videos he’s recorded captures interesting processes and behaviour occurring in our gardens”.

Afternoon session

The afternoon session was basically an exchange of useful comments and ideas to enlist more Garden BirdWatchers and how useful the information that was collected was proving for researchers of garden wildlife.

Garden BirdWatch is run by the BTO. It is a Citizen Science Project, whereby people observe their garden birds or other garden wildlife and complete a form. Its really simple and rather enjoyable taking very little time or effort

Free BTO Garden BirdWatch book when you join

Why join?

Understand and connect with your garden’s rhythms and annual cycles, and contribute your sightings to our ongoing research on garden wildlife.

The project is funded through an annual subscription of £17.

Join today and receive a free copy of the 220-page ‘Garden Birds and other wildlife‘ (cover price £14.99), which will help you identify and understand your garden visitors.

You’ll also receive four copies of Bird Table (our quarterly magazine), and get expert advice from the BTO to help you identify, understand and look after the wildlife in your garden.