Category - hive inspection

hive inspection

My one rule for hive inspections

June 30, 2017

60 Comments

5 min read

Fall management: How many bees is enough for successful wintering?

hive inspection • honey bee management • how to • wintering

Fall management of honey bee colonies

August 29, 2014

53 Comments

6 min read

hive inspection

Fretting over fall hive inspections

September 13, 2012

14 Comments

4 min read

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

hive inspection • honey bee management

Summer in the city: urban hive inspections

July 14, 2011

10 Comments

3 min read

hive inspection • honey bee management

Is too much hive inspection a bad thing?

July 12, 2011

26 Comments

4 min read

Frame of bees: Simple brood nest inspections

hive inspection • how to

Brood nest inspections made easy

May 17, 2011

42 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.

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.