Tag - floral fidelity

honey

Bee secrets: what happens when bees make honey?

December 15, 2022

7 Comments

A honey bee collecting water. Honey bees will fly as far as necessary to find water.

honey bee behavior

The remarkable distance honey bees actually fly

September 28, 2022

20 Comments

wild bees and native bees

Bicolored pollen pellets on a bumble bee

July 17, 2017

13 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

honey bee behavior • pollen

Bee with bi-pollen disorder?

May 14, 2011

20 Comments

honey bee behavior

Reasons floral fidelity is important for bees and...

May 11, 2011

11 Comments

English for beekeepers • wild bees and native bees

Wednesday wordphile: floral fidelity

January 12, 2011

5 Comments

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.