Bees are everywhere. They form an enormous clade of over 20,000 known species globally, inhabiting every continent except for Antarctica. Beyond their incredible morphological diversity, different species exhibit a sophisticated range of behaviors, life histories, and ecological niches. As Earth’s favorite fuzzy farmer friend, they are essential for promoting plant growth, reproduction, and crop yield through pollination services; without them, we’d simply be lost. Unfortunately, a “bee-less” reality may be closer than we think, as anthropogenic factors such as habitat loss and climate change pose a significant threat to their survival. So, how can we measure what we are losing while identifying which species are staying resilient? At the Insect Collection, housed inside the Entomology department at the University of Minnesota, my project in curating unprocessed bee samples from 2016 for the National Wildlife Refuge System inventory aims to answer these questions. By creating a research-grade archive of bee species from Midwestern refuges, this project will allow researchers to track changes in species abundance and traits to provide the data necessary for effective pollinator habitat restoration.