Since childhood, junior Lam Le has been fascinated with bugs. From ants to beetles to arthropods, Le has worked with all sorts of bugs in and outside of school. His interest led him to start Entomology Club with junior Trevor Hou this school year to discover more insects and learn more about different types of bugs. Recently, the Entomology Club has once again came into the spotlight with their collaboration with the Botany class to create bee houses for native solitary bees in Minnesota.

In order to help pollinate the flowers and other plants around campus, Entomology Club had originally planned to start making bee houses early in the Spring. However, the Botany class coincidentally had similar plans for the second semester students to make DIY bee houses and put them around the school, and ended up beating the Entomology Club to the creation of the bee houses.

The bee houses were only one of Entomology Club’s projects as of late. Even though the bee houses are now redundant, the club still has several ongoing projects such as their hatching darkling beetles and terrarium jar in the biology room.

“We started the terrarium jar this year a few meetings ago [to observe insects] and we check on it occasionally to make sure it stays alive,” said junior Ethan He.

With Hou gone this semester on a semester away program, He has taken over as interim co-leader for the Entomology Club with Le.

“Ethan and I, we’ve caught a lot of ants recently. We caught a bunch of queen ants outside of club time, like at the junior retreat,” said Le.

The two leaders are always on the lookout for new insects everywhere they go, even during events such as the junior retreat and prom.

Le said, “He caught a stag beetle and brought it to prom. It was from a year ago and the beetle was previously infected by a parasitic fly.”

The Entomology Club members and leaders are all filled with curiosity and passion for bugs and various critters found in the outdoors. The club has plans to start an insect pinning collection next year during club time and display their own pinned insects as a goal for next year.