This dataset contains data on insects observed visiting flowers of three crops (apples, field beans and oilseed rape) and responses by recorders to a questionnaire asking about their experience carrying out pollinator surveys. Data from thirteen flowering crop fields was collected by teams based at the University of Reading and the James Hutton Institute in Scotland. Data was collected by different recorders, some of whom were novice data collectors, experienced researchers or farmers and agronomists. Recorders were asked to implement three methods: pan trapping, transect walking and/or hand pollination and plant bagging. Transects involved walking a 50m transect recording floral visitors to crop flowers within a 1m squared moving observation widow next to the recorder. Pan trapping involved placing out three coloured water trap arrays along a 50m transect and then recording what flying insects were caught in the water traps at the end of the survey. Hand pollination and plant bagging involved putting mesh bags over flowers to exclude visitation by insects, hand pollinating crop flowers and counting and marking flowers with cable ties. Data were collected between April and July 2015 from sites across the UK. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/5822900b-3af4-4bb9-a2d6-0b5d384e2a3c

Geographic distances between pairs of wild bumblebee colonies across an agricultural landscape centred on the Hillesden Estate, Buckinghamshire, UK. Colony locations were estimated using the foraging locations of workers sampled in summer 2011, genotyped and grouped into full-sib families. The spatial structure of five Bombus species (Bombus terrestris, B. lapidarius, B. pascuorum, B. hortorum and B. ruderatus) was determined, with inter-colony distances varying from 7 to 5264 metres. Data were collected as part of a project led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, funded under the Insect Pollinators Initiative. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/8b3f4857-9809-43cb-b2aa-a988e64a5449

Data comprise the collection label details of museums specimens for five bumblebee species (Bombus hortorum, B. muscorum, B. lapidarius, B. pascuorum and B. sylvarum) from five UK museums (Natural History Museum (London), National Museums Scotland, Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, and World Museum (Liverpool)). The details include species, collector, date collected, location, and caste. The location for each specimen was geotagged using Google Maps’ Geocoding application programming interface. Each specimen had its left and right forewing landmarked, with the wing shapes aligned using a Procrustes alignment, and Procrustes distance between the wings calculated. The data came from a digitisation program as part of a NERC funded Standard Grant awarded to R. Gill (NE/P012574/1) and I. Barnes (NE/P012914/1). Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/2696535e-564a-4c6a-877e-515996fa97a1