During the summer of 2025, we partnered with Dr. Seth Davis, Boulder Valley Honey, and the US Forest Service to explore native bee-honey bee competition on protected lands. 

Following concerns about honey bee hives on public lands, it is imperative to understand how non-native honey bees impact the foraging and reproductive success of native bees. We used targeted netting and cavity nesting traps to assess the network structure, body size metrics, and reproductive health of native bees in areas with and without honeybees to understand the impact of honeybee competition on this system.

Views from honey bee deployment on June 6.

Urban Pollinators

My master's thesis research explored local and landscape-level factors related to differences in bee and butterfly diversity across Denver city parks. A primary driver of this work was exploring the luxury effect, to determine if Denver parks had higher pollinator diversity in higher-income areas. We partnered with the Salazar Center and Denver Parks and Recreation to determine management solutions to improve pollinator habitat across all parks, regardless of income level.

Cavity nesting traps to assess cavity-nesting bee diversity and reproductive success.