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Home » Archives for 2019

Archive - 2019

writing and blogging

Much to celebrate: Honey Bee Suite is 10 and counting

1 year ago
24 Comments
7 min read
wild bees and native bees

Cultivating an obsession with bees

1 year ago
17 Comments
12 min read
wintering

The winter hive: to tap or not to tap

1 year ago
40 Comments
4 min read
bee rescue

A humongous hive in a house

1 year ago
12 Comments
2 min read
publications

Wintertime reading for bee people

1 year ago
6 Comments
10 min read
varroa mites

Opposing views of mite management: data vs date

1 year ago
33 Comments
5 min read
writing and blogging

Thank you for reading Honey Bee Suite

1 year ago
47 Comments
5 min read
publications

Get a free subscription to 2 Million Blossoms!

1 year ago
3 Comments
1 min read
When the zinc coating begins to corrode, it sheds as a grayish-white powder which may be toxic to bees.
feeding bees

Is zinc toxic to honey bees?

1 year ago
27 Comments
5 min read
Varroa drawers: The varroa drawers and screens are interchangeable and easy to clean.
beekeeping equipment

A short history of the Valkyrie long hive

1 year ago
39 Comments
15 min read
honeycomb

What the heck is a honey cone?

1 year ago
22 Comments
3 min read
bees in art

A close-knit family of bees

1 year ago
6 Comments
2 min read
beekeeping equipment

Slatted racks: everything you need to know

1 year ago
61 Comments
7 min read
attracting wild pollinators

Distinctive domiciles for solitary bees

1 year ago
2 Comments
5 min read
publications

Want 2 Million Blossoms delivered to your door?

1 year ago
3 Comments
2 min read
wild bees and native bees

Immigrant bees that colonized North America

1 year ago
2 Comments
14 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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Recent Comments

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  • Laura Forbes Pitts on The best mason bee straws ever
  • Rusty on Should you feed pollen supplement in spring?
  • Nicola on Should you feed pollen supplement in spring?
  • Dieter on Respiration and Circulation in Honey Bees
  • Rusty on The best mason bee straws ever
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Category List

Creating a Buzz

  • Should you feed pollen supplement in spring?
  • How to help a bee in distress
  • Pollen patties: when and why?
  • A beekeeper asks, “When do I quit?”
  • Why seed bombs don't work
  • Winter feeding of honey bees
  • When to feed pollen substitute to honey bees
  • Dead bees in winter: what is normal?
  • Sugar syrup ratios: which one to use
  • 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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