THE call has gone out for people to volunteer as bumblebee friends across the Yorkshire Dales and Forest of Bowland.

Volunteers will undertake the important task of surveying bee populations and recording their feeding habits as part of the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust's Meadow Links project.

Full training in how to identify and monitor the bees will be provided on Tuesday, June 6 at Colt Park, near Ribblehead, and on Friday, June 9 at Gisburn Forest hub.

Volunteers will then be asked complete ‘bee walks’ once a week for six weeks from early June to mid-July.

By regularly walking through a specially selected wildflower hay meadow, it is hoped data can be gathered to help build up a picture of bumblebees across the region.

The Meadow Links community driven project aims to restore wildflower rich hay meadows along ecological networks – helping pollinators and other wildlife move across the landscape.

To volunteer or find out more about this work in the Yorkshire Dales contact Tanya St. Pierre on 015242 51002 or email Tanya.Stpierre@ydmt.org

To get involved in the Forest of Bowland AONB contact Sarah Robinson on 01200 448000 or email Sarah.Robinson@lancashire.gov.uk

Meadow Links will be delivered in partnership with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) ‘Parish Wildlife Project’, Buglife’s national ‘B-Lines’project and Natural England. It is supported by funding from D’Oyley Carte, Banister Charitable Trust and John Spedan Lewis Foundation.