After months of careful planning and negotiations, a team of experts led by Dr Nikki Gammans have embarked on a special mission to bring short-haired bumblebee queens back to the UK from the south of Sweden.

This is an exciting opportunity and a Natural England Species Recovery project to bring a lost species, extinct in England back to our countryside . The project steering group, which includes Natural England, have worked very closely with authorities in Sweden over the last two years, to set the project up. On behalf of Dr Gammans and the steering group, we are extremely grateful to our Swedish colleagues for their help and support.

A trial was carried out in May 2011 to ensure that the Swedish population was healthy enough to donate between 30-100 bees. The project team was then given permission to collect a limited number of short haired bumblebees in May 2012 by the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket).