Category - essential oils

essential oils • feeding bees

Will cream of tartar harm my honey bees?

11 years ago

14 Comments

2 min read

attracting wild pollinators • bee forage • essential oils

Anise oil for bees: they will follow it anywhere

12 years ago

23 Comments

2 min read

essential oils • feeding bees • honey bee nutrition

The secret of bee tea . . . remains a secret

12 years ago

2 Comments

2 min read

essential oils • feeding bees • honey bee management • how to

How to prevent moldy syrup in bee feeders

12 years ago

26 Comments

3 min read

essential oils

Essential oils and honey bee health

12 years ago

94 Comments

3 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!