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Red plexiglass hive lids fight small hive beetles.

pests

Red plexiglass lids for small hive beetles

1 year ago

28 Comments

5 min read

pests

Ants no more: how to keep ants out of your beehives

7 years ago

61 Comments

6 min read

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

pests

Can I use mothballs in my hives?

9 years ago

32 Comments

2 min read

pests

Braula coeca: devastating bee parasite makes a lousy companion

10 years ago

12 Comments

2 min read

pests

Do mice eat bees?

11 years ago

13 Comments

1 min read

bee stories • honey bee behavior • pests

Bad ant advice and the ascension of bees

12 years ago

142 Comments

4 min read

comb honey production • honey • pests

Freeze combs to prevent wax moth damage

13 years ago

68 Comments

3 min read

You can kill wax moth larvae, as well as adults and eggs, by freezing honeycombs.

pests

Freezing comb honey cuts wax moth damage

13 years ago

27 Comments

3 min read

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. This book started zillions of people on their path to beekeeping. If you haven't read it, you should.

QueenSpotting: Meet the Remarkable Queen Bee and Discover the Drama at the Heart of the Hive by Hilary Kearney. You have to be a scrooge not to love this book. It even includes 48 queenspotting challenges.

The Bees in Your Backyard by Wilson & Carril. If you have any interest at all in the "other bees," you need this book. These are the bees we need to save.

Manuka: The biography of an extraordinary honey by Cliff van Eaton. The discovery of manuka honey and its medicinal properties.

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.