Tag - seeds

gardening for bees

Seed catalogs bring the promise of spring

4 years ago

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Seed bombs often don't work because the soil is too damaged. Pixabay

bee forage

Seed bombs: reasons why a clever idea barely works

8 years ago

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bee forage

Bee-u-tify flower seeds for bees

8 years ago

12 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

pollination

Daffodil seeds are easy to get

11 years ago

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pollination

Plant pollination yields seeds, the key to agriculture

13 years ago

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pollinator threats • wild bees and native bees

Ten ways to help the bees, starting today

13 years ago

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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.