Any other hobby entomologists here?

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Apis mellifera said:
Maybe you can start a movement to exterminate honeybees from North America to save natives. Best of luck!
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That's not what I was implying at all... Honeybees are naturalized in the US and here to stay at this point. We just need to do our best to take care of the native pollenators which are being outcompeted by honeybees where that is an issue, and also to save them from negative human impact from light pollution, habitat destruction, climate change, pesticides, etc

I'm definitely not a honeybee hater! In fact I love the little guys. I think they're super interesting and I loooove honey. But our top priority should be saving our native species.
 
I am a huge mantis fan and a couple years ago brought some inside and watched them lay eggs. I have video of it somewhere and I think I posted photos on the Spooders thread. But lately I have been taking pictures of the weird bugs at our new house. It's a series I like to call Jurassic Porch. I don't know what kind of cicada this is but they leave their molts everywhere and my husband kept calling the molts "death bugs" 😆
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ETA if you live in the USA and you're interested in pollinator conservation: https://www.xerces.org/pollinator-conservation is a great resource to start with!

Honeybee discussion is over but when I say I'm gonna research I mean I'm gonna research!

So I have found MANY sources backing up my stance that, in the United States, honeybees are negatively impacting native pollenator numbers:

https://www.nwf.org/Home/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2021/June-July/Gardening/Honey-Bees

https://www.xerces.org/blog/want-to-save-bees-focus-on-habitat-not-honey-bees

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.3939

https://naturalareas.org/docs/16-067_02_Overview-of-the-Potential-Impacts-of-Honey-Bees_web.pdf

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-honey-bees/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36457280/

Pretty much the same stuff I remember reading before so good to know I wasn't misremembering and making an ass of myself here 😆

I don't mind being wrong, learning new things is the most fun thing in the world to me. I do NOT care for out of pocket passive aggressive remarks during a civil discussion
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I have always loved bugs. Spent hours as a kid just out in the yard observing, looking under rocks and seeing them live their little lives. Bugs are just so vibrant, they have this entire existence so different from ours but often so intertwined at the same time. And spiders have always been my favorite type of animal. They're so mathematically quintessential, I genuinely believe they are the perfect blend of form and function; the rest of us creatures just can't quite compare. For a long time when I was younger, I just couldn't understand how other people saw such ugliness and/or terror where I saw nothing but beauty. I really do believe that spiders are just plain beautiful. As far as what I've cared for in my house, I currently have tarantulas and a couple house spiders (some contained, some just living their lives in a corner while I let them be). I've kept black widows and wolf spiders in the past as well as roaches, centipedes, millipedes and mantids. At one point I had over 40 tarantulas at the same time, but I've scaled back and only have 7 now. I love seeing new species of bugs out in the world and frantically trying to identify them while they're still fresh in mind so I can learn all about them. Insect/wildlife guidebooks have always been my best friends, used to read them just for fun as a kid and marvel at all the things living in my area I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing yet.
 
Pigeony said:
I have always loved bugs. Spent hours as a kid just out in the yard observing, looking under rocks and seeing them live their little lives. Bugs are just so vibrant, they have this entire existence so different from ours but often so intertwined at the same time. And spiders have always been my favorite type of animal. They're so mathematically quintessential, I genuinely believe they are the perfect blend of form and function; the rest of us creatures just can't quite compare. For a long time when I was younger, I just couldn't understand how other people saw such ugliness and/or terror where I saw nothing but beauty. I really do believe that spiders are just plain beautiful. As far as what I've cared for in my house, I currently have tarantulas and a couple house spiders (some contained, some just living their lives in a corner while I let them be). I've kept black widows and wolf spiders in the past as well as roaches, centipedes, millipedes and mantids. At one point I had over 40 tarantulas at the same time, but I've scaled back and only have 7 now. I love seeing new species of bugs out in the world and frantically trying to identify them while they're still fresh in mind so I can learn all about them. Insect/wildlife guidebooks have always been my best friends, used to read them just for fun as a kid and marvel at all the things living in my area I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing yet.
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What species do you keep? Are there any you would recommend for a first time tarantula owner? Any that you WOULDN'T recommend? I love tarantulas so much, got to hold one for the first time at a local "bug zoo" about a year ago, as well as a scorpion. I don't remember what species either of them were... I think the scorpion was maybe Heterometrus spinifer? I was surprised at how heavy it was!
 
A picture of a pair of flat wasps (Bethylidae) mating from last year.

Unsure of species. The female is the smaller, wingless one. I'd never heard of flat wasps before!

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