Leah Malamut, PhD candidate, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
Title: Collecting Building Blocks for a Better Bee
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, USAmerican beekeepers looked to bring other bee species, namely Apis dorsata and Meliponini, to join the established Apis mellifera in North America. Some also hoped to hybridize those other species with A. mellifera to breed an optimized bee. Their efforts were stymied by the challenges of collecting and preserving live colonies in transit and outside their natural habitats. This presentation draws from the third chapter of my dissertation, which argues that the process eventually led American beekeepers to reject the value of other honey-producing bees in favor of their own A. mellifera, which they deemed the best of all possible bee species. I also suggest that global bee exploration blurs the boundary between scientific collection and commercial importation.