The Flight of the Bumblebee

Bumblebee Tableau Dashboard

Recent advances in animal-tracking technology have brought within reach the goal of tracking every movement of individual animals over their entire lifetimes. The potential of such life-long tracks to advance our understanding of animal behaviour has been compared to that of the advent of DNA sequencing, but the field is still in its infancy.
Several ambitious studies have begun to reveal the ways in which long range migratory movements of birds develop throughout an individual’s life, and the effects of migration on mortality. This study tracks the complete flight history of large earth bumblebee (Bombus terrestris audax) foragers, from their first orientation flight until the permanent disappearance of the bees from the colony and from the radar. In doing so, we are able to see the ‘life stories’ of four focal bees, providing fresh insights into the way they explore their environment and exploit the floral resources they find there, and answering a number of questions that can only be addressed by continuous, life-long monitoring: How do the flight characteristics of individual bees change over a lifetime? Do flights transform gradually from exploration of the environment to focussed foraging trips or switch suddenly? Does exploration occur only at the start of a foraging career or does it continue throughout a bee’s life? Do individuals switch fluidly between multiple foraging sites or specialise on a single one? And do individual bees show similar patterns over their lives or do different bees employ different foraging strategies? Globally, pollinator species are in decline, so a deeper understanding of their movements and foraging behaviour is needed for understanding population dynamics and informing conservation efforts.
Harmonic radar allowed the study to combine finer-scale temporal data than is usually obtained from satellite tracks with the ability to track every movement of our focal bees over the several week timescale of their lives as foragers. This continuous monitoring of flight patterns allowed them to pinpoint when and how particular sites were first discovered; to identify the exact point at which switches in behaviour take place; to tell which parts of the environment are being utilised by individuals at any one time; and to address a number of questions that would be beyond reach without detailed knowledge of an individual’s history and development. Through the analysis of this dataset on the lifelong tracking of four individual forager bees, detailing 31 days of flight activity and 244 flights, this is the most detailed study to date of the dynamics of resource exploitation versus exploration in a foraging insect pollinator in a field setting. To the best of our knowledge, this dataset represents the first lifetime track of any individual animal in sufficiently high temporal resolution to examine foraging routes.
Field work took place from June to September 2015 on arable farm land at Rothamsted Research (Hertfordshire, UK, 51’48”13N 0’22”8W, Map below), under approval from the Rothamsted field experiment committee. The main study site was an unmown field of approximately 700 x 300 m, containing grass and various seasonal wildflowers, mainly thistle (mostly Cirsium arvense, with some Cirsium vulgare), but also including dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), daisy (Bellis perennis), wild carrot (Daucus carota) and hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium). On the Northwest of the site was bordered by Park Grass, the world’s longest running ecological experimental wildflower and hay meadow, but this was mown shortly before the start of our study and provided little forage. To the North, the field was bordered by woodland, whose border was thickly grown with bramble (Rubus fruticosus) and by Rothamsted Manor, whose formal gardens contain a variety of cultivated flowers. The Southwestern and Southern limit of the site was a hedge, impervious to radar, bordering a road (B487) on the other side of which are playing fields and residential areas. Arable fields with few sources of forage bordered the site on all other sides

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Field Value
Last Updated March 25, 2026, 01:45 (UTC)
Created March 25, 2026, 01:45 (UTC)
Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title
Title for the Dataset.
The Flight of the Bumblebee
Description
A description of the dataset.

Bumblebee Tableau Dashboard

Recent advances in animal-tracking technology have brought within reach the goal of tracking every movement of individual animals over their entire lifetimes. The potential of such life-long tracks to advance our understanding of animal behaviour has been compared to that of the advent of DNA sequencing, but the field is still in its infancy.
Several ambitious studies have begun to reveal the ways in which long range migratory movements of birds develop throughout an individual’s life, and the effects of migration on mortality. This study tracks the complete flight history of large earth bumblebee (Bombus terrestris audax) foragers, from their first orientation flight until the permanent disappearance of the bees from the colony and from the radar. In doing so, we are able to see the ‘life stories’ of four focal bees, providing fresh insights into the way they explore their environment and exploit the floral resources they find there, and answering a number of questions that can only be addressed by continuous, life-long monitoring: How do the flight characteristics of individual bees change over a lifetime? Do flights transform gradually from exploration of the environment to focussed foraging trips or switch suddenly? Does exploration occur only at the start of a foraging career or does it continue throughout a bee’s life? Do individuals switch fluidly between multiple foraging sites or specialise on a single one? And do individual bees show similar patterns over their lives or do different bees employ different foraging strategies? Globally, pollinator species are in decline, so a deeper understanding of their movements and foraging behaviour is needed for understanding population dynamics and informing conservation efforts.
Harmonic radar allowed the study to combine finer-scale temporal data than is usually obtained from satellite tracks with the ability to track every movement of our focal bees over the several week timescale of their lives as foragers. This continuous monitoring of flight patterns allowed them to pinpoint when and how particular sites were first discovered; to identify the exact point at which switches in behaviour take place; to tell which parts of the environment are being utilised by individuals at any one time; and to address a number of questions that would be beyond reach without detailed knowledge of an individual’s history and development. Through the analysis of this dataset on the lifelong tracking of four individual forager bees, detailing 31 days of flight activity and 244 flights, this is the most detailed study to date of the dynamics of resource exploitation versus exploration in a foraging insect pollinator in a field setting. To the best of our knowledge, this dataset represents the first lifetime track of any individual animal in sufficiently high temporal resolution to examine foraging routes.
Field work took place from June to September 2015 on arable farm land at Rothamsted Research (Hertfordshire, UK, 51’48”13N 0’22”8W, Map below), under approval from the Rothamsted field experiment committee. The main study site was an unmown field of approximately 700 x 300 m, containing grass and various seasonal wildflowers, mainly thistle (mostly Cirsium arvense, with some Cirsium vulgare), but also including dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), daisy (Bellis perennis), wild carrot (Daucus carota) and hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium). On the Northwest of the site was bordered by Park Grass, the world’s longest running ecological experimental wildflower and hay meadow, but this was mown shortly before the start of our study and provided little forage. To the North, the field was bordered by woodland, whose border was thickly grown with bramble (Rubus fruticosus) and by Rothamsted Manor, whose formal gardens contain a variety of cultivated flowers. The Southwestern and Southern limit of the site was a hedge, impervious to radar, bordering a road (B487) on the other side of which are playing fields and residential areas. Arable fields with few sources of forage bordered the site on all other sides
Tags / Keywords
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Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
0.09
Metadata Identifier
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Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
2017-06-08
Time Period Data Span (start date)
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Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
Field Value
Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
public
License
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License not specified
Limits on use
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Location
Location of the dataset.
https://jenssandbox-pollinatorhealth.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/climatechangeon::the-flight-of-the-bumblebee
Data Service
Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner
Owner of the dataset.
OPS_Pollinator_Health_Admin
Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
Climate Change Ontario
Contact Point Email
The email to contact regarding access?
[email protected]
Publisher
Publisher of the dataset.
Climate Change Ontario
Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
Author
Author of the dataset.
OPS_Pollinator_Health_Admin
Author Email
Email of the author.
Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
2017-10-19
Field Value
Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
6ad384b26778402fa244853b2ccfb7ce
Language
Language(s) of the dataset
English
Link to dataset description
A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
https://jenssandbox-pollinatorhealth.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/climatechangeon::the-flight-of-the-bumblebee
Persistent Identifier
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Globally Unique Identifier
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Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type
Platform type of the source portal.
Field Value
Version
Version of the datatset
None
Source
Source of the dataset.
None
Version notes
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Is version of another dataset
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Other versions
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Provenance Text
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Climate Change Ontario
Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
Field Value
Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
Field Value
Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns
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Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities
If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality
A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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