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Home » Archives for February 2017

Archive - February 2017

Internal-hive-temperature
beekeeping equipment

An instant-read hive thermometer for winter colonies

4 years ago
51 Comments
1 min read
carol-lew-barn-2
hive placement

How to hide a beehive

4 years ago
40 Comments
6 min read
Mites-on-a-bumble
wild bees and native bees

Bumble bee answers every beekeeper needs

4 years ago
34 Comments
7 min read
Chocolate-covered-cherries-are made with invertase.
honey bee nutrition

How the honey bee uses invertase

4 years ago
32 Comments
4 min read
By Xolani90 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26406168
varroa mites

It’s not about mites any more

4 years ago
85 Comments
9 min read
Does cannabis honey come from cannabis flowers?
honey

Is cannabis honey really a thing?

4 years ago
30 Comments
3 min read
Honey bees at hive entrance
bees in the news • honey bee threats

Haunted by losses, a Maryland beekeeper speaks out

4 years ago
17 Comments
6 min read
Should you try to save a failing colony?
honey bee management

Should you try to save a failing colony?

4 years ago
27 Comments
6 min read
Varroa-destructor-on-honey-bee-600px
English for beekeepers • varroa mites

Varroa: a mite by any other name

4 years ago
16 Comments
5 min read

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Bee Wise

Go to the bee, thou poet: consider her ways and be wise.

—George Bernard Shaw

Bee-yond Bees

Bees are more than a hobby; they are a life study, in many respects a mirror of our own society.

—William Longgood

Why Honey Bee is Two Words

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

State Insects

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!

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  • jeff wesolowski on A beekeeper asks, “When do I quit?”
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Category List

Creating a Buzz

  • Should you feed pollen supplement in spring?
  • How to help a bee in distress
  • A beekeeper asks, “When do I quit?”
  • Why seed bombs don't work
  • Pollen patties: when and why?
  • Respiration and Circulation in Honey Bees
  • Winter feeding of honey bees
  • When to feed pollen substitute to honey bees
  • When should I put my mason bees outside?
  • What to do with moldy combs

A Song of the Bees

In case you missed it: A Song of the Bees

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