Hymenoptera

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The Hymenoptera are one of the largest and strongest parts of the collection. Some of the past and present members of the department involved with Hymenoptera collections are J.C. Bradley, V.S.L. Pate, C.R. Crosby, A.D. MacGillivray, C.F.W. Muesebeck, H.K. Townes, H.E. Evans, W.L. Brown, Jr., G.C. Eickwort, R.A. Morse, W.W. Middlekauff, K.V. Krombein, and others. Hymenoptera represent about 17% of total drawers in the collection, and include 1350 drawers (12.5% of total). The collection has over 2000 species represented by types. The families with greatest strength are Tenthredinidae (39 drawers), Braconidae (36 dr.), Ichneumonidae (106 dr.), Cynipidae (37 dr.), Mutillidae (31 dr.), Scoliidae (80 dr.), Vespidae (92 dr.), Pompilidae (87 dr.), Sphecidae (114 dr.) and all families of bees (see below).

An early and extensive collection of Cynipid galls (stored in large paper folders and envelopes with biological data and notes) was compiled by S.H. Burnham and is now incorporated into the Cornell collection; we alsohave many types of Cynipidae from work by J.J. Kieffer. African Scoliidae (especially Campsomerinae) are very strong, due principally to work by J.C. Bradley and J.G. Betrem. We have strong collections of wasp and bee larvae, and a collection of wasp prey (of Pompilidae and Sphecidae) made by Prof. H.E. Evans and F. Kurzcewski.

Thanks to the efforts of George Eickwort and Roger Morse, and, most recently, Bryan Danforth (and students), our bee collection has grown substantially over the last 20 years. We currently house between 150,000 and 270,000 bee specimens identified to ~3700 species. Our collection includes representatives of all bee families, subfamilies, tribes and many of the genera worldwide. A major effort was undertaken in 2009/2010 to curate the entire bee collection. This effort was led by Sophie Cardinal with assistance of Bryan Danforth and several undergraduate assistants (Michael Orr, Lori Moshmann, Andrew Debevec) and was made possible by funds from the Bradley endowment. The breakdown of our current bee holdings are listed below.

Family (no. drawers)
Stenotritidae (1)
Colletidae (30)
Halictidae (111)
Andrenidae (53)
Melittidae (5)
Megachilidae (40)
Apidae (150)

Total drawers: 390

A complete list of bee species in our collection is available as a downloadable pdf in the downloads window.