Where Britain's wild bees live

References & sources

Part of the HoneyBee & Co. Bee Education Series. Explore global species in the World Bee Atlas and see how bee decline affects your food in Your Plate Without Bees.

1. National Bee Unit. Wild Bees in the UK (Fact Sheet 08, October 2024). APHA / Defra. PDF
2. Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society. National recording scheme for aculeate Hymenoptera in Britain & Ireland. bwars.com
3. Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Bumblebee Species Guide — 24 species accounts with distribution maps. bumblebeeconservation.org
4. Powney, G. D. et al. (2019). Widespread losses of pollinating insects in Britain. Nature Communications 10:1018. doi.org
5. Species on the Edge / NatureScot. Great Yellow Bumblebee — distribution, ecology and conservation status. speciesontheedge.co.uk
6. Buglife — The Invertebrate Conservation Trust. Bug directory: Bombus distinguendus, Bombus sylvarum, Osmia xanthomelana. buglife.org.uk
7. Natural England. Species Recovery Programme — Bombus sylvarum (Shrill Carder Bee) strongholds: Thames Estuary, Gwent Levels, Somerset, Salisbury Plain. gov.uk/natural-england
8. Falk, S. J. (2015). Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland. British Wildlife Publishing. britishwildlife.com
9. Else, G. R. & Edwards, M. (2018). Handbook of the Bees of the British Isles. Ray Society. raysociety.org.uk
10. UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS). UKCEH / JNCC national citizen science survey, annual reports. ukpoms.org.uk
11. National Biodiversity Network Atlas. UK occurrence records for wild bees. nbnatlas.org
12. UK Parliament, House of Commons Library. Bee numbers and decline, Research Briefing CDP-2017-0226 (updated 2026). commonslibrary.parliament.uk

Regional species totals are indicative figures derived from BWARS county-level recording and NBN Atlas distribution data. Many solitary bee taxa are under-recorded outside southern England; treat figures as minimum counts. Notable-species attributions follow Falk (2015) and current BWARS species accounts.