Tag - making increase

guest posts • swarming

Details of the Taranov split

10 years ago

14 Comments

how to • swarming

Another take on Taranov

10 years ago

39 Comments

how to • swarming

The great divide: a Taranov split

10 years ago

45 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

honey bee management • how to • making increase

How to make an overnight split

11 years ago

62 Comments

how to • making increase • spring management

Doing the Mississippi splits

11 years ago

4 Comments

comb honey production • honey bee management • how to • making increase • queen rearing

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.