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Anthophora terminalis: the orange-tipped wood digger bee

The orange-tipped wood digger, Anthophora terminalis, is a bee I never saw until I ran into this feisty fellow. I was working in my garden during the last week of June when something quick and loud began bugging me. At first I thought it was a bumble bee. But unlike a bumble bee, it would […] Read more

Chimney bees and their turrets

Nothing is more exciting than a new bee, so when these photos arrived from Louisiana beekeeper Robert Lunsford, I was immediately enthralled. The photos are great and the bee is way cool. The bees Robert found are a type of digger bee called Anthophora abrupta, also known as the “chimney bee.” The anthophora bees are […] Read more

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Bee Wise
Go to the bee, thou poet: consider her ways and be wise.

—George Bernard Shaw
Bee-yond Bees
Bees are more than a hobby; they are a life study, in many respects a mirror of our own society.

—William Longgood
Why Honey Bee is Two Words

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
State Insects
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!
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