Tag - hive tool

beekeeping equipment

Beekeeper magic: how to become a hive tool magician

3 months ago

21 Comments

bee stories

Where, oh where, has your hive tool gone?

11 years ago

54 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

beekeeping equipment

Bee suit-related stress syndrome: why they drive me mad

12 years ago

18 Comments

I love bees, but beekeeping can be tough.

bee stories • miscellaneous musings

I love bees, but beekeeping? Not so much

12 years ago

22 Comments

beekeeping equipment

“Stocking stuffers” for your favorite beekeeper

13 years ago

5 Comments

beekeeping equipment

The types of hive tools

13 years ago

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bee biology

Why honey bees collect propolis

14 years ago

10 Comments

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. This book started zillions of people on their path to beekeeping. If you haven't read it, you should.

QueenSpotting: Meet the Remarkable Queen Bee and Discover the Drama at the Heart of the Hive by Hilary Kearney. You have to be a scrooge not to love this book. It even includes 48 queenspotting challenges.

The Bees in Your Backyard by Wilson & Carril. If you have any interest at all in the "other bees," you need this book. These are the bees we need to save.

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.