126 – Casey Hale – Bees that are parasites on other bees

When you think of a bee you probably think of an insect hard at work growing its nest and pollinating plants. But over 10% of bees are kleptoparasites; bees that don’t build their own nests, but are parasites on other bees. In this episode we learn the fundamentals of this highly-evolved and sophisticated way of living. To help us understand the twists and turns of kleptoparastism we had one of our listeners, Casey Hale, join us. Casey is Research Technician in the Podeva and McArt Labs in the Department of Entomology at Cornell University.

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Links Mentioned:

• Casey’s book recommendations:
  The Solitary Bees: Biology, Evolution, Conservation (2019, Danforth, Minckley, Neff and Fawcett), The Bees in Your Backyard (2015, Wilson and Messinger-Carril), Letters to a Young Scientist (2013, EO Wilson)
• Casey’s Go-to-Tool: Baby powder for digging up bee nests.
• Casey’s favorite pollinator: Lilac Cloak-and-Dagger Bee (Thyreus ceylonicus ssp. lilacinus)