Author Biography

Elaine Evans is a University of Minnesota Extension Educator working on pollinator education and research relating to bee conservation. She completed her MS and PhD in Entomology at the University of Minnesota. Elaine studied declining North American bumble bee populations for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Her current work focuses on determining the status of bees in MN, monitoring threatened populations of the rusty patched bumble bee, evaluating the impacts of pollinator habitat on bumble bee colony performance and health, documenting pathogen spillover from managed honey bees to bumble bees, and enacting pollinator conservation through education, outreach, and public participation in science. Elaine works with members of the public who want to help bumble bees by joining one of the many regional Bumble Bee Atlases across North America. Ian Burns completed his PhD studying social development and conflict in the North American bumblebee Bombus impatiens. During the course of his thesis work, he worked out many details of how to raise Bombus impatiens colonies from wild-caught queens. He is also a Chinese scholar and taught Chinese at the University of Minnesota as well as schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Ian is currently a part of University of Minnesota Bee Squad. Patrick Lhomme is a researcher at the University of Mons in Belgium where his main interest is the taxonomy, ecology, and conservation of wild bees with a particular focus on cuckoo bumble bees. He studied the chemical ecology of cuckoo bumble bees and learned how to rear several European and American bumble bee species. He also developed more sustainable and biodiverse farming systems to protect wild pollinators and increase farmer income by improving crop pollination services with the International Center of Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Morocco and is the co-founder and head of R&D of Entomonutris, a company producing insect-based proteins for animal feed.

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