Wild Bees, Trees, & More with Cornell University’s Kass Urban-Mead

You might be familiar with the beautifully industrious honey bee brought to North America in the 1600s. However, according to Cornell University's--Kass Urban-Mead--New York State is home to over 400 species of native wild bees. Kass has been busy climbing up into trees and discovering the increasingly important role they play in pollinating plants across the landscape. Who knew there were so many bees?

Kass is a PhD Candidate in the Danforth & McArt labs in the Cornell University Entomology Department. She is interested in sustainable land management for insect conservation, particularly in agriculture & forestry. Kass's dissertation explores the landscape, nutritional, network, and community ecology of wild bees in agro-ecosystems. Kass climbs into temperate tree canopies to research how forest resources are used by orchard-pollinating wild bee species. She has found that the details of the lives of bees open an endlessly complex avenue to explore humans’ relationship with the land.