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60,000 bee specimens donated to KU At 530,000, University now has largest bee collection in the world said although he came back looking like a skeleton from the trip,he got an intunt of seien
BY CHARISA YOUNG
correspondent@kansan.com
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The last shipment of famous bee specimens arrived during Thanksgiving break at Snow Hall. The late Donald B. Baker, a world-renowned entomologist and authority on the diversity of old world bees, donated his collection to the University of Kansas. The donated collection increases the number of specimens in KU's bee collection to 530,000, the largest bee research collection in the world.
"It's impossible to duplicate this bee collection," said Leonard Krishtalka, director of the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center. "It's invaluable. The fact that we were given this collection as a gift, even though many others bid on it, shows how high we were regarded by the family."
Michael Engel, assistant curator of the division of entomology, has the 16 custom-made cabinets containing 60,000 pinned bee specimens, representing 6,000 species, in his office. Engel said that the donated collection will attract entomologists from all around the world.
The specimens come mostly from the Middle East, Central Asia and Arabian countries, as
well as a strong representation from Europe, Africa and southeast Asia. Baker made many research contributions on the evolution of bees in those regions, Engel said.
Recently, scientists around the world, from Belgium to South Africa, have contacted Engel, anxious to view the collection for their own research. Engel said he was willing to ship a small number of bee specimens out, but scientists who want to examine a large number must come to the University.
"The Baker bee collection is just one of the jewels in the crown," Krishtalka said. "Our collection attracts scholars from all over the world. No one can really do bee research without referencing our collection."
Baker started collecting specimens in the 1930s when he served in the British army. The army took him to places around the world, allowing him to continue collecting specimens long before areas like the Middle East were dangerous.
Engel has experienced firsthand the dangers in the field while trying to collect specimens. In 2000, he worked in regions in Kyrgyzstan heavily controlled by Al Qaeda and similar extremist groups, and he was shot at and chased after. Engel
"It was one of the most productive trips I've ever been on, but from a safety issue, I'm surprised no one lost their life," Engel said.
Engel said Oxford University, Baker's alma mater, and the British Museum of Natural History wanted Baker's collection, but neither institution had an active research program. Baker didn't want his collection to stagnate, Engel said.
"During one of my visits to see him, he said that he could only think of one institution in the world that maintained, over a very lengthy period of time, a history and tradition of maintaining active research over the systematics of bees, and that's the University of Kansas." Engel explained.
To transport the remainder of the collection from England to Lawrence, Engel said Zachary Falin, Snow entomological collection manager, and Allan Smith-Pardo, a graduate student in entomology, accompanied him to England to help with the laborious work in preparing the specimens for shipment.
After finishing his visit to England, Engel took a cabinet back to the University, and several months later, Baker died
Smith-Pardo said if you touched the bee specimens with your fingers, the exoskeleton
one of the jewels in the crown."
Leonard Kristalka director of the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center
would break right away. Because the bees are so fragile, Smith-Pardo said each had to be braced with pins — all 60,000 bees. Smith-Pardo explained this must be done to prevent the bees from moving around during shipment. If parts of the specimen were to break up, it's almost impossible to associate the parts with the correct specimen.
The bees were placed in drawers with a glass cover, individually packed and labeled, and were sent through U.S. Customs.
"He had a series of notebooks with just a phenomenal amount of data that he never had a chance to get to in his life." Engel said. "It'll keep me busy for decades to come."
In addition to the bee collection, volumes of meticulous hand-written field reports and more than 2,000 scientific offprints were donated from Baker's collection.
Edited by Marissa Stephenson
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