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A male leafcutting bee foraging on goldenrod. Whereas managed honey bees can be fed pollen supplements, wild bees must go without.

honey bee nutrition

The honey bee diet requires many amino acids

5 years ago

11 Comments

honey bee nutrition • pollen

The role of pollen in honey bee nutrition

7 years ago

22 Comments

bee forage

An act of defiance: plant a flower

9 years ago

15 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

feeding bees

Tea in the honey bee diet

10 years ago

16 Comments

honey bee nutrition

Protein and the hypopharyngeal gland

10 years ago

9 Comments

Bee drinking from a slimy water source. Pixabay

honey bee nutrition

Honey bees love that dirty water, but why?

11 years ago

31 Comments

honey bee nutrition • pollen

Pollen variety and bee health

12 years ago

24 Comments

feeding bees • honey bee nutrition • spring management

What vitamins should I give to my bees?

13 years ago

27 Comments

bee forage

Monday morning myth: alder pollen is bad for bees

13 years ago

7 Comments

bee forage • honey bee nutrition • pollen

Honey bee forage: pussy willow

13 years ago

8 Comments

diseases

The CCD connection: what I believe about colony...

13 years ago

3 Comments

comb honey production • honey • honey bee nutrition • photographs

Uncapped honey fermenting in the comb

13 years ago

73 Comments

pollen

Pollen: a tough package wrapped in color

13 years ago

2 Comments

honey bee nutrition • pollinator threats

Monoculture diets and honey bee health

14 years ago

1 Comment

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.