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The odor coming from a hot hive is likely alarm pheromone.

stings

Powerful and toxic honey bee venom is injected, not sprayed

5 months ago

16 Comments

4 min read

stings

A beekeeper’s brush with disaster

1 year ago

59 Comments

8 min read

Snow scene: Are your honey bees ready for winter?

stings

One last sting: a fitting end to 2020

3 years ago

39 Comments

4 min read

stings

Are winter bee stings worse than others?

7 years ago

82 Comments

3 min read

stings

That smarts! 9 fascinating facts about bee stingers

8 years ago

25 Comments

4 min read

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

pesticides • queen rearing • stings

When the weak become strong

9 years ago

34 Comments

6 min read

bee stories • stings

Best bee sting relief: how to ease the epic pain

10 years ago

38 Comments

4 min read

stings

Allergy or just scary looking?

11 years ago

28 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.

Category - stings

Powerful and toxic honey bee venom is injected, not sprayed

A beekeeper’s brush with disaster

One last sting: a fitting end to 2020

Are winter bee stings worse than others?

Stings of winter bees

That smarts! 9 fascinating facts about bee stingers

When the weak become strong

The suspense of the sting

Best bee sting relief: how to ease the epic pain

Allergy or just scary looking?