Category - pollinator habitat

pollinator habitat

It’s time to collect stems for bees

August 11, 2019

19 Comments

3 min read

pollinator habitat

How does your garden grow?

June 9, 2015

28 Comments

5 min read

bee rescue • pollinator habitat

Do large tubes yield extra-large mason bees?

April 11, 2015

25 Comments

4 min read

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

attracting wild pollinators • pollinator habitat

Pollinator walls, bee towers, and insect hotels

March 22, 2012

13 Comments

3 min read

pollinator habitat

Wild pollinators cannot replace honey bees . . .

January 12, 2012

8 Comments

3 min read

Milkweed fairies ready to fly and deliver their seed.

pollinator habitat

Milkweed fairies due for a comeback

September 23, 2010

4 Comments

2 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.