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bees in the news

Bee bits in the news

It was quite a week in the bee world, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep up. Here are links to a few stories that caught my attention. And a finally a reminder of the pollinator challenge: Adopt a pollinator this year and learn everything you can about her. If you get a good […] Read more

Bee-yond bee-lief: drama in the media

This morning I was working out and watching the news when the reporter said something like, “Up next, Woodinville firefighters respond to a very unusual call.” Now why is it that any beekeeper would know—beyond a shadow of doubt—that the news piece was going to be about bees? I had no doubts. Call it extrasensory […] 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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