Tag - predators

A green entrance reducer. Entrance reducers never fit

beekeeping equipment • miscellaneous musings

Why do entrance reducers never fit?

August 21, 2011

4 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

apiary creatures • honey bee behavior

Bees vs. mouse: a skeleton tells the story

May 31, 2011

15 Comments

A swarm in a tree. Absconding and swarming are very different.

honey bee behavior

Why do honey bees swarm (or abscond) in the fall?

October 11, 2010

78 Comments

Small hive beetles on a honey comb. CSIRO image

predators

A face to remember: the small hive beetle

October 1, 2010

12 Comments

pollinator threats • predators

Yellowjacket café: the honey bee special

July 17, 2010

5 Comments

photographs

Visitors to the bee yard

May 7, 2010

2 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.