In New Zealand, it is the rarest of the four species, with small numbers at a few locations in inland South Island.

The programme was run by Natural England, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and bee and wasp charity Hymettus.

In 2012, a second attempt was made to reintroduce the short-haired bumblebee using queens from Skåne province of southern Sweden.

[7][8][9] By the summer of 2013, workers of the species were found within 5 kilometres of the reintroduction site, showing that nesting had been successful.

[10] The project continued collecting bumblebee queens from Skåne until the spring of 2016, to get a genetic span.