Making a collection can be a fun and rewarding experience and something I encourage, especially if you have a real interest. I’ll give you a quick rundown on how I go about building and keeping my collection. I’ve added photos as well as videos that I created for my Daily Entomologist channel on Youtube.

Before I get into it I’m going to provide you a link to Bioquip which is the place I get all my entomological supplies

https://www.bioquip.com/html/catalog.htm

Collecting the Insects:

To even start a collection you need to have some insects. Luckily all you really have to do to find insects is step outside. You might even be able to find insects inside your house. I started my collection by collecting in my backyard and was able to collect some cool species as well.

Look for insects on flowers, under logs and rocks, in leaf litter, on trees, at lights at night, or just crawling on walking trails. You’ll be hard pressed to find an area without insects.

There is a wide range of equipment that entomologists use to collect insects, mostly depending on what group of insects they are targeting. The most basic would be just some sort of lightweight container (preferably plastic) and your hand. The picture below is my basic gear that I bring into the field with me when I’m doing just general collecting. I have a net with an extendable handle and a bag full of items. In the main area are plastic vials and in the side pockets there is a bag of glassine envelopes for butterflies as well as forceps to pick up and handle insects that like to bite or sting.

Having these items will probably give most of you all you will ever need as you can catch a large variety of insects but if you want to expand your possibilities or want to focus on a group of insects then you can always try out various types of traps.

There are a wide range of traps one can use but I only use a couple really simple ones that work wonderfully for the insects I want to catch. The first one I’ll cover is using a black light or a mercury vapor lamp for night collecting. The picture below was a set-up that was put together for a bio-blitz event I was helping with.

If you are interested in collecting moths or just nocturnal insects then this type of set-up will work wonderful for you. I also just use a regular black light from Walmart and lean it on a white sheet which works as well. If you don’t want to use either then just a regular bright white light at night will work also, such as a porch light. Either way this method will allow you to find insects you’ll usually never see during the day time.

Because the main focus of my collecting efforts are geared towards Hymenoptera I use two other types of traps that might also be of use to you. One is yellow pan traps or bowl traps. These are extremely simple traps that are just colored plastic party bowls filled with soapy water.

You can use any color bowl you want but I mainly use yellow as well as some blue ones. These bowl traps are proficient at catching bees and wasps so if that’s a group you want to focus on then you might want to try bowl traps out.

These are usually placed in the field in the morning and picked up in the evening. As you can see from the picture below, bowl traps can give you a good number of insects of productive days. This is catch from about 20 or so bowls left in the field for a day.

The last trap I use is a pitfall trap. I don’t have pictures of one at the moment but will get one eventually. A pitfall trap is basically a cup stuck in a hole in the ground. You dig a hole then place a cup filled with preservative in it then let it sit for a few days to a week then pick it up. I use pitfalls for collecting ants but you will also catch a large number of ground beetles and other insects that crawl on the ground.

To dispatch the insects you collect (except the ones from the bowl and pitfall traps as they are already dead) place them in the freezer for at least 24 hours.

Pinning Insects:

Pinning insects is relatively straight forward but first be sure you have actually insect pins which are pins made specifically for insects. You can find them at Bioquip. Explaining how to pin insects is kind of hard to do it writing so I including the videos I made on how to pin insects. Keep in mind this is how I do things and others might do it slightly differently but give them a watch.

Labeling Your Insects:

Labeling your insects is (in my opinion) the most important step. The labels provide information and adds to the scientific value of your specimens. Insects without labels are worthless to science and in all honesty if your collecting just to do it and not labeling then you shouldn’t be collecting at all but that’s a discussion for another time.

At a minimum your labels should include location, date, and who collected the insect. Others include multiple labels that include plant it was found on, method of collection and other more in depth info. I personally don’t go that in depth with my labels but I do add a little more than just the basic info.

Below is another video I made on making my labels and I also go much more in depth about the process. Hopefully you can get some ideas and tips from it.

Storing Your Insects:

If you’ve made it this far then kudos to you. At this point you are pretty much done, all that’s left is storing your insects. You have a couple options here. The picture below shows a couple of the ways I do it. You can use the white field boxes you see in the photo that you can buy from Bioquip. These work really well and stack easily. Another option that I think works really well also is buying a slab of styrofoam and a 28 qt tub from Walmart. I have currently have much of my collection stored this way, though granted its more of a temporary measure.

The best option albeit more expensive is using Cornell Drawers which are drawers made specifically for storing insects. I use the drawers for the specimens I have ID’ed and are ready for their final home. When they make it into a drawer then I know it’s the final product.

 I hope this helps give you a couple pointers on making your own collection. If you have any questions feel free to ask.