Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Utah, Dr. Joseph Wilson has coauthored a marvelous book called The Bees in Your Backyard.
We discuss the book in detail in the interview, including how to tell bees apart from other insects, common bee myths, and more.
Dr. Wilson has conducted research on evolution and ecology of bees and wasps, and frequently guests on radio and news media to discuss this increasingly hot topic.
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“Misconceptions can lead to misguided efforts to save bees.” – Dr. Joseph Wilson
Show Notes:
- Why they decided to write the book The Bees in Your Backyard
- Some of the fundamental characteristics that make a bee
- How to identify common myths about bees
- Why most people don’t know about bees that are not honey bees
- How they wrote the book so that it appealed to scientists and people who had never read a book about bees
- How they made a key to help people understand how to identify a bee
- About the research that Joseph does that goes beyond bees
- The positive movement in citizen science when it comes to bees
- Why bee research is hard because many places don’t have baseline data on bee populations
- How to develop a backyard bee habitat
- Why Joseph is fascinated with a type of bee that is only 2mm long
“As people learn to identify the bees in their yard, we can use that as baseline data.” – Dr. Joseph Wilson