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Queen cells can be a sign of queenlessness.

queen bees

How to recognize a queenless hive: 9 reliable ways

January 26, 2023

29 Comments

Bees exchange food and information through trophallaxis. Note their extended tongues.

bee biology

Lickety-spit: how bees use trophallaxis to easily...

January 25, 2023

8 Comments

Here, yellowjackets are lined up on the door to a storage shed, making it difficult to enter. The nest is protected inside the shed.

predators

The ultimate yellowjacket trap is in your trash

October 6, 2022

32 Comments

queen bees

A virgin queen’s fertility window

April 28, 2022

35 Comments

wasps

When yellowjacket traps don’t work

March 3, 2022

23 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

honey bee behavior

Honey bee pheromones: common scents

February 23, 2016

31 Comments

If you need to kill a queen for any reason, consider making her into a swarm lure by soaking her body in alcohol.

queen bees

Tincture of queen: how to make the best swarm lure

October 31, 2013

26 Comments

bee biology

What is open-brood pheromone?

June 18, 2013

27 Comments

honey bee behavior

Why do my bees turn nasty when I kill them?

March 29, 2013

2 Comments

beekeeping equipment • how to • swarming

Wednesday word file: footprint pheromone

March 16, 2011

3 Comments

Sometimes things can go wrong with swarm traps. This one contains a wasp nest.

beekeeping equipment • swarming

Swarm traps can be powerful or no good at all

September 12, 2010

35 Comments

bee biology • swarming

Preventing a swarm is not easy

May 14, 2010

23 Comments

beekeeping equipment

Smoker fuels are as varied as beekeepers

May 5, 2010

16 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.