photo by: Olivia CarrilLove at First Flight
Wild Bees and the Flowers They Adore
Saturday, June 28, 2025; 7 pm - 9 pm
at the Appalachian Forest Museum
$20/person
Please note: The Saturday evening lecture is already included in the full weekend registration. Purchase ONLY if you are not attending the full weekend event.
Join us for an engaging lecture exploring the fascinating world of wild bees and the plants they pollinate. Discover how these tiny, tireless pollinators and blooming flowers intricately engage—each seeking what they need to survive, yet together creating the breathtaking floral landscapes we see each year. Dr. Olivia Carril will discuss specialized bees and the flowers they rely on, the unique shapes and scents of the blossoms we treasure, and the incredible role each member of a plant-pollinator network plays in sustaining the base of Ohio's food webs. Most of all, she will remind us of the lessons we have to learn from the natural world around us: the value of beauty, individuality, and connection.
Olivia Carril, Entomologist
Olivia Carril has been studying wild bees for over 25 years in environments throughout the United States. She received her BS from Utah State University, studying the bees of Pinnacles National Monument. She also received her MSc from Utah State University, conducting a study of the bees of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. She received her PhD from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she studied the evolution of host plant preference in a specialist bee, Diadasia. More recently, she has worked on studying the pollinators of New Mexico’s rare plants and has continued to conduct surveys of bee communities on public lands in an effort to establish baseline population information. She is the author of three books on bees: The Bees in Your Backyard, Common Bees of the Eastern U.S., and Common Bees of the Western U.S. She lives in Santa Fe, NM, where she teaches middle school science at the Santa Fe Girls School.