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A small honey harvest can be disappointing, and many things can go wrong.

honey production

13 reasons for small honey harvests (& how to...

4 months ago

13 Comments

ventilation

How to increase hive ventilation for whopping honey...

9 months ago

38 Comments

beekeeping equipment

The Upstairs Downstairs Intrance: better hive access

4 years ago

43 Comments

honey production

Upper entrances can enhance your honey production

6 years ago

81 Comments

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

bee biology

Happiness is a mid-winter cleansing flight

7 years ago

47 Comments

honey bee management

A gentle warning about upper entrances: not too big

7 years ago

57 Comments

beekeeping equipment

Keep honey bees dry and draft free

8 years ago

43 Comments

how to

How to plug the holes in your beehives

8 years ago

26 Comments

beekeeping equipment

An upper entrance in winter

8 years ago

35 Comments

honey production

Surplus secret: access holes with platforms

8 years ago

110 Comments

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.

Manuka: The biography of an extraordinary honey by Cliff van Eaton. The discovery of manuka honey and its medicinal properties.

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.