Dr Tom Ings from the SBCS and colleagues from the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society are carrying out a new study into why some bumblebees are active during the winter months in the UK, when they should be hibernating. This could be linked to warmer winters and an increase in exotic plants being grown around gardens in Britain, which bees can forage from. Or maybe it is because the bees have been breeding with foreign bees that remain active in the winter months. Tom Ings said: “Some people think you are mad when you talk about bees in the winter, but we seem to see this happening quite a lot now. We need to find out what is going on.” See the report in the Daily Telegraph.