We help our annual picnic/ potluck on Saturday, September 19, 2026 at Prairie Lane picnic area in Jubilee State Park (near Kickapoo, Illinois). 22 members and guests were present. Alex with Lex-tra Crispy provided the chicken and vegetarian options. Many brought side dishes and desserts as well.

The food was quite tasty and everyone had a great time catching up (especially since our recent field trips have been affected by severe weather.

I ran a honey tasting station. Everyone go to taste different varieties and I asked them to rank the honey first, second, third. I provided local clover honey, raw honey (also local), Kamahi honey from New Zealand, Rata honey (also from New Zealand), Manuka honey (yep, New Zealand again), and sintgless bee honey from Borneo. I also observed the local yellowjacket wasps trying to sample the honey. However, they ignored the New Zealand and Borneo varieties entirely. I suspect this makes sense because they would have no experience with those scents.

For those who are curious, Rata honey was the preferred honey by most. Second place was a tie between Manuka and Kamahi. Third place was typically stingless bee honey. Oddly, no one picked the clover or raw honey as their favorite (even that is what we all grow up on around here).

I have included a gallery of photos taken at the event. Although I set up the sheets for night insect observing, we encountered a fair amount of rain as it grew dark so I shut everything down and mercury vapor lamps and rain do not mix well. Hope to see everyone at our October field trip.

June 20, 2026 – Our June field trip included a visit to Volo Bog (near McHenry, Illinois). Since this was roughly a 3 hour drive from central Illinois, some of us elected to spend Friday night at a hotel. We had 6 members of our group participate. We spent a fir amount of time photograqphing insects at the bog. We used the boardwalk train to the eye of the bog and some of us also visited the observation tower along the Tamarack Trail.

After visiting the bog, some of us visited Moraine Hills State Park.

I have included some of the photos from our trip in the gallery below. Both Volo Bog and Moraine Hills State Park. Thanks to Jose for taking the group selfies. You will also find many more photos in our Facebook group page. I hope you enjoy the photos and we hope you will be able to participate in our next field trip (on July 18).

For our March, 2026 field trip, we visited Bennett’s Terraqueous Gardens in East Peoria, IL. We had a great turnout with 18 people (and Einstein – the dog). Jose took a number of photos and those are included below in a gallery.

Here are soe of the insects we encountered. If you are reading this and saw additional insects, please let us know. Given the temperature and the fact that we experienced a major cold snap with snow a short while ago, this was a great start to the season.

Coleoptera – Curculionidae, 

Diptera – Heleomizidae

Hemiptera – Gerridae

Lepidoptera – Nymphallidae