A bumblebee species that has been extinct in Britain for almost a decade is to be reintroduced next year, from a colony of the insects that was exported to New Zealand over a century ago.

Conservationists are to fly to MacKenzie County in New Zealand’s South Island in November to collect short-haired bumblebee queens to breed in captivity. They will then use the bees’ offspring next June to start repopulating the English countryside with a species that was last seen in 1988 and was officially declared to have died out in 2000.

If the project is a success, it would mark the first time that a native species has been re-introduced using a colony descended from the population that became extinct.

“These bees look the same, and they have the same genes,” said Nikki Gammans, of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, who is leading the initiative. “The important thing about this project is that it will be the first one to bring back exactly what we have lost.”

The short-haired bumblebee (Bombus subterraneus) was once common throughout southern England, but was last spotted near Dungeness, Kent, in 1988. It is one of two species that have become extinct in the past 60 years, the other being Cullum’s bumblebee. Another seven of the 18 native social bumblebee species are threatened.

All have suffered from the loss of an estimated 98 per cent of wild flower meadows in the past 60 years, and from increased use of herbicides and pesticides in agriculture. This has left bumblebees, particularly those that emerge from hibernation in late spring or early summer, without sufficient food on which to thrive.

The short-haired bumblebee, however, has become a candidate for reintroduction because it lives on in New Zealand, where it was taken in the late 19th century to pollinate the red clover that had been introduced to grow as cattle fodder.

New Zealand had no bumblebees capable of pollinating red clover, and the short-haired species was chosen after Charles Darwin advised that a long-tongued species would be required.

Dr Gammans will fly to New Zealand in November to collect queens as they emerge from hibernation in the southern hemisphere spring and then breed them in captivity using techniques developed by Jaromir Sizek, an amateur bee enthusiast from the Czech Republic.

After the bees — which have queens that grow to about 1½ inches, with workers and males that are about half this size — have been through one life cycle in New Zealand, Dr Gammans will bring a second generation of queens back to Britain next spring, while they are still hibernating, for release near Dungeness.

The bees, with yellow bands on the thorax and a white tail, will be transported in “old-fashioned hair-rollers” stopped up with corks, and kept at 5C to keep them in hibernation, she told the British Science Festival in Guildford.

“When we release them in June, we hope they will lay colonies and start again, and synchronise with the northern hemisphere seasons,” she said.

To prepare for the reintroduction, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust has worked with Natural England to promote the recovery of a suitable habitat around Dungeness. Farmers have been paid to plant borders of red clover and other suitable flowers around their fields. Dr Gammans said more than 30 square kilometres of suitable land are now available.

Should the project be successful, the trust plans to extend it elsewhere, probably starting with Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.

“It’s a flagship species,” Dr Gammans said. “Half the bumblebee species that are native to the UK are declining or gone, and we need to reverse that trend.”

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