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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

May 9, 2023

16 Comments

4 min read

stings

A beekeeper’s brush with disaster

June 22, 2022

59 Comments

8 min read

Snow scene: Are your honey bees ready for winter?

stings

One last sting: a fitting end to 2020

January 3, 2021

39 Comments

4 min read

stings

Are winter bee stings worse than others?

November 10, 2016

85 Comments

3 min read

stings

Stings of winter bees

December 7, 2015

52 Comments

4 min read

Honey bees kill a bald-faced hornet. Photo by Rusty Burlew

stings

That smarts! 9 fascinating facts about bee stingers

September 25, 2015

25 Comments

4 min read

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

pesticides • queen rearing • stings

When the weak become strong

June 27, 2014

34 Comments

6 min read

bee stories • stings

The suspense of the sting

June 12, 2014

23 Comments

4 min read

stings

Best bee sting relief: how to ease the epic pain

January 23, 2014

38 Comments

4 min read

stings

Allergy or just scary looking?

March 11, 2013

28 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.