In May 2017, I started a post-doc in the MSU Entomology department, following completion of my PhD at Tufts University. It was a quick turn around from writing my dissertation, and I was out in the field collecting bees the first week on the job! I was hired to work on a USDA-NIFA funded project evaluating pollinator health in Michigan. (read more about the project here) As part of this project, I traveled all over Michigan this summer collecting wild bees, from blueberry fie

Working in an entomology department, insect death is all around me. It's one of the unfortunate parts of the job, that I've always had mixed feelings about. But there are some really good reasons why sometimes we have to kill bees to save bees. If we want to identify wild bees to species, you have to be able to look at it under a microscope, and compare it to reference specimens. Unlike birds and other animals, it is impossible to identify the wide diversity of bees “on the w