Category - pests

pests

Ants in your beehive? Here’s how you can help your colony

5 years ago

54 Comments

6 min read

pests

Can I use mothballs in my hives?

7 years ago

29 Comments

2 min read

pests

Braula coeca: lousy companions

8 years ago

12 Comments

2 min read

pests

Do mice eat bees?

8 years ago

13 Comments

1 min read

bee stories • honey bee behavior • pests

Bad ant advice and the ascension of bees

9 years ago

141 Comments

4 min read

comb honey production • honey • pests

Freeze combs to prevent wax moth damage

10 years ago

63 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!