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Archive - May 2012

beekeeping equipment • ventilation

Hive five: the best ventilation equipment

9 years ago

3 min read

honey bee management • how to • making increase

How to make an overnight split

9 years ago

3 min read

honey bee threats • predators

The birds and the bees

9 years ago

2 min read

muddled thinking • swarming

To gleefully bludgeon a beemudgeon

9 years ago

3 min read

spring management • swarming

The catch-22 of beekeeping

9 years ago

4 min read

bee forage

Honey bee forage: Pacific waterleaf

9 years ago

1 min read

guest posts • honey production

Extracting Australian watermelon honey

9 years ago

3 min read

honey bee behavior • predators

Update on ants

9 years ago

3 min read

bees in the news

Great expectations

9 years ago

2 min read

guest posts • honey bee management • how to • pollination ecology

Managing packages and swarms

9 years ago

3 min read

other pollinators

And I thought bumbles were big

9 years ago

2 min read

bee forage

Honey bee forage: vine maple

9 years ago

2 min read

bees in the news • pesticides

News clip about neonicotinoids and honey bees

9 years ago

1 min read

spring management

Post-package anxiety

9 years ago

3 min read

photographs • wild bees and native bees

Bumble bee on cherry laurel

9 years ago

1 min read

bee stories • honey bee behavior • pests

Bad ant advice and the ascension of bees

9 years ago

4 min read

Regardless of dictionaries, we have in entomology a rule for insect common names that can be followed. It says: If the insect is what the name implies, write the two words separately; otherwise run them together. Thus we have such names as house fly, blow fly, and robber fly contrasted with dragonfly, caddicefly, and butterfly, because the latter are not flies, just as an aphislion is not a lion and a silverfish is not a fish. The honey bee is an insect and is preeminently a bee; “honeybee” is equivalent to “Johnsmith.”

—From Anatomy of the Honey Bee by Robert E. Snodgrass

The non-native European Honey Bee is the state insect of:

Arkansas
Georgia
Kansas
Louisiana
Maine
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
New Jersey
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Not one native bee is a state insect. The closest relative of a North American native bee to make the list is the Tarantula Hawk Wasp, the state insect of New Mexico.

Update! Minnesota now has a state bee as well as a state insect. Bombus affinis, the Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee, has been so honored. Good work, Minnesota!