Meeting 1245 Minutes

Minutes from the 1245th Meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club

The 1245th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President Amine Kousba at 7:32pm on Tuesday, December 9, 2025. Approx.19 members and guests attended w/ 7 additional members on Zoom.

New business:
Alina Liu and Remi Christiansen were nominated for membership

Old business:
Stef Linden was approved for membership

Our speaker was Dr. Richard Primack, Professor of Biology at Boston University. His talk was entitled Flower visitors to the plants of Newton and the Arnold Arboretum:  Can honeybees and native insects coexist?

Are honeybees a potential threat to food sources for our native bees and other pollinators?
To answer this question, Professor Primack along with his students and colleagues, have been studying flower visitors, first in Newton and currently at the Arnold Arboretum. Starting in 2024, Primack’s team surveyed mostly flowering woody plants at the Arboretum from April through July. They recorded nectar/pollen collecting behavior, flower abundance, and found significant variation in the relative abundance of different flower visitors from year to year with various bees dominating. Apparent bumblebee diversity at the Arboretum as recorded by BU professor Otto Plath in the 1930s has declined from 13 species to 4.
Plans for next years’ Arboretum survey include identifying insects to species and comparing the Arnold Arboretum observations to 12 other botanical gardens worldwide. Prof. Primack welcomes additional contributors to help with IDs.

The meeting adjourned at 8:59pm

Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary