Category - robbing

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

honey bee behavior • robbing

Robbing and fighting and falling in clumps

8 years ago

23 Comments

4 min read

honey bee behavior • robbing

Robbing bees on a mission

10 years ago

13 Comments

2 min read

robbing

How to recognize robbing bees and ways to stop them

11 years ago

143 Comments

6 min read

honey bee behavior • robbing

Captive robber bees can change allegiance

12 years ago

16 Comments

3 min read

Robbing bees can make a colony defensive. Photo by Ken Rhodes

how to • robbing

How to stop robbing honey bees

12 years ago

66 Comments

4 min read

honey bee management • predators • robbing

Yellowjackets and honey-robbing bees go hand-in-hand

12 years ago

78 Comments

3 min read

robbing • spring management

Use caution when removing entrance reducers

12 years ago

15 Comments

1 min read

honey bee behavior • predators • robbing

How I threw a banquet for yellowjackets

12 years ago

5 Comments

3 min read

honey bee management • robbing

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.

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!

Connecticut’s state insect is the European “praying” mantis. Although they are beneficial insects, they are not native to North America.