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Distinctive domiciles for solitary bees

Who says bees don’t like castles and cabins, chalets and caves, or even cabanas and condominiums? As the saying goes, “Build them and they will come.” And they do. Pat Barberi of Barre, Vermont has made of hobby of creating unique but functional solitary bee houses from miscellaneous vessels she finds at the secondhand shop. […] Read more

Making a hive into a home

Yesterday I was weeding the garden, minding my own business, when I overheard the most extraordinary conversation. I didn’t catch the whole thing, but it started like this: “Honey, I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s time we split from the family and found ourselves a new home. It’s getting so crowded in here, I can’t even […] 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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