The Good Life – May-June 2018

Meet this beautiful girl ...
George the 9th
net. We have a guy in our department who
fits the bill perfectly. I never went that way,”
Carey said. “I was always an ag boy. I was in
production and control, but there was a faction
of people in our department who lived and breathed
collecting insects. If it’s not eating my food or biting me,
I don’t care about it. I grew up on a farm, so if there was
an insect, you stepped on it or swatted at it.”
Initially a wildlife management major in college,
Carey was soon persuaded by his friend to take a few
entomology classes.
“My next door neighbor in the dorms was crazy — nice,
but crazy. He’s a good guy. He was even in my wedding.
He was in entomology and convinced me to take a few
classes. I took them and I liked them. So this is all my
crazy next-door neighbor’s fault.”
Years after he started at NDSU, Carey was invited to
speak at a kindergarten classroom about insects. Since
then, he’s been known as “The Bug Man.” He has given
presentations that capture the attention of elementary
students for 40 years. He’s even dressed as a cockroach.
“My presentations have to be entertaining. A lot of times
my presentations are to 5th, 6th and 7th graders. At that
age, science is starting to become boring. I try to keep
it interesting. I ask them if they like honey. Well, you
don’t have to call it honey. Think about it. When a bee
has to move honey from one colony to the next, how
do they transport it? They basically have a honey
stomach, so they swallow it and then regurgitate it.
You can call it honey, but I call it bee barf. It’s good
for you, it’s nutritious, and it’s something an insect
threw up.”
Living Organisms
What we do to get rid of one pest can greatly and
sometimes gravely impact humans, as well. Part
of an entomologist’s job is to guide the actions of
farmers and pesticide and insecticide companies
from doing more harm than good for the sake of a
good yield of crops.
“The disadvantage of killing bugs is that when you
kill a bug, you tend to kill other things,” Carey said.
“In my outreach program where I talk to kids, I used
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