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Three hives where the varroa drawers were pulled out by rats.

Rats as honey bee predators

Do you think of rats as honey bee predators? I never once considered it until I saw these photos taken by Tracy Klein of Seattle. I know that rats are considered intelligent and innovative, and Tracy’s photos seem to prove it. Her rats learned how to take out both the entrance reducers from the front […] Read more

Who visits your bee hive at night?

Do you wonder who visits your bee hive at night? Have you thought about which of your hive’s many callers prefer the cover of darkness? Well, some of the smaller guests were recently caught red-handed by Cal Early, a beekeeper living near Olympia. Cal was wondering who was eating the dead bees on his landing […] Read more

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Bee Wise
Go to the bee, thou poet: consider her ways and be wise.

—George Bernard Shaw
Bee-yond Bees
Bees are more than a hobby; they are a life study, in many respects a mirror of our own society.

—William Longgood
Why Honey Bee is Two Words

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
State Insects
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.

Update! 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!
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