Dr Beynon's Bug Farm

15/08/2026

Our freshly-moulted jungle nymph enjoying being a stage ahead of all her friends!

15/08/2026

Anyone else get this earlier?

National Emergency Briefing. Now.

Sign at petition.parliament.uk/petitions/767687

14/08/2026

A fabulous day of Hedgehog Discovery sessions with Ginny from Pembrokeshire Hogspital. Seeing young people leaving, being so passionate about what they could do to help hedgehogs was incredibly special.

Ginny is currently caring for 60 rescue hedgehogs, largely taken to her because of a lack of food and water as a result of the drought. She can't release them until we get some rain, as they will have very little to eat.

If you want to help, please take a food donation to a local drop-off point - we're the dtop-off point for St Davids. Just pop it in the bottom of our C&M Organics veg box delivery shed by the Ticket Office when we're open. There is more info on what food is needed in the comments below.

14/08/2026

Disposable barbecues are now banned to help reduce wildfire risk.

A temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues has been issued by the government.

They state the single-use grills “have been the cause of a number of serious wildfires across the country over the summer months”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cmdx7p1q02yrt

14/08/2026

The Western Telegraph picked up on our call to local retailers to stop selling disposable barbecues from a few days ago. They published this article this morning, just before the UK government banned the sale of disposable barbecues this afternoon. This is a great step by the government which will help to keep nature, people, crops and farm animals safe in this unprecedented dry period. Bring on the rain next week!

A Pembrokeshire tourist attraction with a focus on conservation is calling for the sale of disposable barbecues to banned during the continued spell…

14/08/2026

Some of the spectacular residents in our Tropical Bug Zoo!

🪲Rainbow stag beetle
🕷Mexican red-knee tarantula
🪲Jewel stag beetle

14/08/2026

🚨 Abstract deadline day!

Today is your last chance to submit an abstract for and share your work with the insects as food and feed community.

📢 Abstract deadline: Today, 17:00 BST, Friday 14 August

https://www.royensoc.co.uk/event/iaff26/

14/08/2026

As a supporting signatory on this, we are very concerned by the environmental impact of the withdrawal of Huskvac.

The recent announcement that Bovilis® Huskvac, the UK’s only licensed lungworm vaccine, will be discontinued following the 2027 season, comes at precisely the wrong moment for UK cattle farming.

In July BCVA led a collaborative sector-wide response to send a letter to the Veterinary Record to express our concerns regarding what this could mean for sustainable parasite control. The full version of this response, with an extended list of signatories, is now available on our website.

You can see the full response in the news section of our website.

https://www.bcva.org.uk/content/discontinuation-huskvac-threat-sustainabil-parasite-control

(We welcome additional signatories from organisations and institutions. You can email [email protected] and we will make the additions to this webpage within 7-10 working days).

13/08/2026

18 years after embarking on my DPhil with Owen Lewis at Oxford, we are working together again, with masters student Abit carrying out research here at The Bug Farm.

We spent a fabulous day planning research around our marsh fritillary butterfly reintroduction with Wild Cymru in the tropical Pembrokeshire heat!

As part of our wider research looking at marsh fritillary conservation in West Wales, Abit plans to look at where marsh fritillary butterflies lay their eggs and how these microhabitat conditions affects overwinter survival. He'll also be looking at how our reintroduced caterpillars survive the winter, depending on the microhabitat conditions at release sites, as well as modelling how they may spread across the landscape, identifying barriers to dispersal. All of this work will hopefully help to inform marsh fritillary butterfly conservation in the future.

I feel very lucky to have met such wonderful, inspiring people during my DPhil at the University of Oxford and to be still linking up with many of them today - Richard at Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Joe Bat Conservation Trust, Darren Mann, Richard Wall, and Eleanor at TEELab to name just a few 💚.

https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/people/owen-lewis

This project is supported by a Nature Networks Fund project, which is delivered by the Heritage Fund, on behalf of the Welsh Government and in partnership with Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru / Natural Resources Wales.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund Cronfa Treftadaeth y Loteri Gen / National Lottery Heritage Fund - Cymru Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru / Natural Resources Wales Welsh Government

12/08/2026

Testing out the new crab spider climbing wall like a pro!