In 1855 he was elected Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, but at that time it provided no advantage in terms of material well-being, and he didn't even have an assistant at the museum. In the 1830s through the 1850s vast zoological collections were received by the museum from different regions of the Russian Empire, including Russian America, and through collection exchanges with foreign Museums, but there weren't enough cabinets and cases. Under such difficult conditions Menetries had done a lot primarily on beetles and butterflies. He studied fauna of European Russia and of Siberia; published one of the first works on fauna of Kazakhstan based on the collections of the famous traveller S. Karelin (great grandfather of the poet Alexander Blok). He examined collections of A. Leman, a doctor and naturalist who was sent on a Russian political mission to Khiva and Bukhara (nearly unstudied at that time), and who died on the way back from Central Asia. Thus, foundations of knowledge on entomofauna of these areas were laid and collections were established on which this knowledge rested. In order to cope with the huge amount of technical work and to have time for investigations Menetries sought the assistance of a small group of St. Petersburg amateurs in entomology (primarily butterfly and beetle collectors). They prepared and labeled insects that were included into the collection. For that service they received duplicate specimens. Negative aspects of this practice very soon became apparent. Some amateurs took advantage of Menetries’ reliance. A particularly negative role was played by V.I. Motschulsky starting in the mid-1850s. This very energetic man, colonel of the General Staff, owner of a huge collection and author of numerous works on systematics of beetles and some on other insects suggested that he would identify and bring into order the Coleoptera collection. He then handled the collection of the Museum as if it had been his own: he took home whole parcels of material, kept the most interesting specimens, used duplicates for exchange purposes, and returned to the museum only what was left. His example was followed by other collectors who examined Hymenoptera, Heteroptera and other groups. At the end of his life Menetries studied mostly butterflies, which are therefore in a better state of preservation than other insect orders. When he died at the beginning of 1861 his successor, A.F. Moravits, had to make much effort to bring the collection into order and regulate access to it.