Archive - November 2020

attracting wild pollinators

Emergence box vs hatching box: what’s the difference?

3 months ago

6 Comments

4 min read

bee forage

Lovage: an all-purpose pollinator plant

3 months ago

19 Comments

11 min read

Honey-bee-suite turns seven honey bee on dahlia

writing and blogging

A Thanksgiving thought: share what you know online

3 months ago

46 Comments

6 min read

miscellaneous musings

The best beekeeping advice I ever shared

4 months ago

20 Comments

4 min read

bee biology

CRISPR: the basics you need to know

4 months ago

26 Comments

12 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!