The Mill City Times Interview: Dr. Elaine Evans, Assistant Extension Professor and Bee Researcher, University of Minnesota
Saturday, October 3, 2020 at 4:30PMArticle by Becky Fillinger
The Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota has maintained an internationally recognized research, teaching and outreach program on honey bees for 102 years! We talked to Dr. Elaine Evans, Assistant Extension Professor and Bee Researcher, to find out what we can do to help protect our precious pollinators.
Dr. Elaine Evans
Q: What should Minneapolis residents do to help the bees in winter? Any yard or garden preparations?
A: Please leave the leaves. Don't cut back perennial stems until next spring. Leaving a layer of leaves on top of the ground can help to insulate bees as they spend the winter underground. Other bees nest in stems and won't be emerging until spring or early summer. They need their stems. You can also create stick and leaf piles in untended corners of your garden to help create areas for bumble bees to live next year.
Q: What types of bees are in Minnesota?
A: Minnesota has over 460 different species of bees. They vary greatly in size and include every color of the rainbow. We have bumble bees, leaf-cutter bees, sweat bees, plasterer bees, oil bees, carder bees, blood bees, yellow masked bees, mining bees, and many others.
Q: Have we lost pollinators locally?
A: We don't know the status of most of our bees. The bee group we know the most about are bumble bees. One out of three bumble bee species in Minnesota is of conservation concern. This is seven out of twenty-three species. Only one has official protection as a federally declared endangered species: the rusty patched bumble bee. This is also our state bee! We do still see rusty patched bumble bees in Minnesota, but their populations have dropped dramatically compared to twenty plus years ago. In contrast, Ashton's cuckoo bumble bee has not been seen anywhere in Minnesota since the late 1990s.
Q: How can we stay current with your work at the UMN Bee Lab?
A: There are many ways! To keep up with what we are doing at the UMN Bee Lab, you can subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and two Twitter accounts - https://twitter.com/CariveauLab and https://twitter.com/UMNBeeLab_Squad.
I can also recommend a couple great podcasts that focus on pollinators:
The Bee Report, http://thebeereport.buzzsprout.com/
PolliNation, http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
About Becky Fillinger
I’ve been a resident of the Mill District only since July 2019, but have visited the Guthrie, the Farmers Market, restaurants and friends in the area for many years prior to making the leap to Minneapolis. I’ve lived in many places (and climates) in the US and can testify that our cultural events, bicycle and hiking trails, parks and green spaces, museums, diverse neighborhoods and wonderful restaurants put Minnesota and Minneapolis high on my best places list. I’m a member of the Mill City Singers and look forward to our choir practices and performances.
One of my main interests is community - a very broad concept. For me it means bringing people together with common interests to form meaningful relationships. I look forward to reporting on businesses and individuals in our neighborhoods. Feel free to drop me an email at becky_fillinger@hotmail.com with your thoughts and ideas for stories.
