You can kill and preserve insects with dry ice - a bit expensive but
works wonderfully for preserving color, etc.  We carry dry ice because we
analyze bees for industrial and agricultural chemicals and can't use any
chemicals to kill them that might "contaminate" the sample.  So, our bees
go from dry ice to a freeze drier.  Obviously, this approach is not
available to many, but I will bet you can get a small chunck of dry ice
to kill and preserve bees until you can get them home and then
dry/preserve them.  One approach that I have not tried is to dry them in
silicon gel in a microwave.  Works for flowers.  Go easy or you will have
cooked bees.
 
Jerry
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On Wed, 2 Mar 1994, La Reine de la Cite' des Phoques (Liz Day) wrote:
 
> When collecting Bombus, I have a problem in keeping them dry.
> In summer I find that killing jars sweat inside very quickly.
> If the bee gets wet, its fur never looks nice again.
> I was using cyanide jars, which usually killed them very fast,
> before they had time to get messed up, but I have become too
> nervous of cyanide and am trying other chemicals, none of
> which work... Lots of people tell me they use ethyl acetate or
> n-butyl acetate.  But in my experience, these take FOREVER to
> actually kill the poor bees.  You think they're dead, you mount
> them, and then later you discover them moving.  UGH.  So next
> time you leave them in the jar for the hour or more it seems to
> take to make sure they're dead, and they get all wet.
>
> What methods have other people used to solve this problem?
> Cyanide is out.
> Thank you...!
>
> Liz Day
>
> University of Illinois at Chicago
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>