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This is the first chapter in the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel. It covers the benefits of bees, pollination in cities and towns, and how bee hotels can support native bees.
Identifying bees on the wing is known to be tricky. The Bees of North Carolina: An Identification Guide is a beginner’s resource designed to help quickly and generally identify native bees in North Carolina. Developed by experts at NC State Extension, it provides an overview of some of the most common groups of bees in the state. The guide will help users learn to recognize bees according to key characteristics and, eventually, according to their overall appearance.
This article describes and defines the different types of insects that sting and are also often mistaken for honey bees.
This Entomology Insect Note discusses the biology and control of carpenter bees, which bore tunnels in wood with their strong jaws.
This chapter of, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, describes building materials and features of different bee hotels. It covers tunnel size, shelter, shade, orientation, navigation, and other features.
A step-by-step instruction and description of how to install and maintain a new colony of honey bees.
It is the goal of every beekeeper to maintain healthy, productive colonies. This can only be accomplished by reducing the frequency and prevalence of disease within beehives. The following is an outline of recommendations for detecting and treating colonies for economically important parasites and pathogens of honey bees so that beekeepers may achieve this goal, and do so in a sustainable way for the long-term health of their colonies.
An overview of honey bee dancing, a behavior that constitutes a language telling other workers the location of a food source.
This factsheet provides basic information about prevention and control of Africanized honey bees prior to their expected arrival in North Carolina. (Part 2 of a 3-part series.)
It can be a challenge to manage a perennial garden to look tidy and maximize benefit to wildlife. To benefit native, solitary bees, we recommend trimming perennial stems in their first winter to a create a 12"-24" stubble. Bees occupy these cut stems as nesting space over the following year. Recommendations are based on participatory research conducted with Extension agents and Extension Master Gardener℠ volunteers in North Carolina.
Honey bees, like all other living things, vary in traits such as temperament, disease resistance and productivity. The environment has a large effect on differences among bee colonies (for example, plants in different areas yield different honey crops), but the genetic makeup of a colony can also impact the characteristics that define a particular group. Beekeepers have long known that different genetic stocks have distinctive characteristics, so they have utilized different strains to suit their particular purpose, whether it be pollination, a honey crop or bee production.
This factsheet outlines the history, movement, distribution, and present status of the Africanized honey bee in the United States. (Part 1 of a 3-part series)
This factsheet describes bees in the family Colletidae.
Beekeeping is a very enjoyable and rewarding pastime that is relatively inexpensive to get started. Moreover, it’s a hobby that can eventually make you money! This factsheet is a primer on how to start your first hive and begin keeping bees.
This factsheet describes the biology of small carpenter bees, genus Ceratina, and provides residential management recommendations.
Italian honey bees are susceptible to two deadly parasitic mites, while Russian bees have shown promise in resistance to these mites. This factsheet offers comparisons between Italian and Russian honey bees.
The varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is the most serious pest of honey bee colonies worldwide. This parasite was first detected in North Carolina in 1990, having been introduced to the US only three years earlier. Virtually all feral (or “wild”) honey bee colonies have been wiped out from these mites, and beekeepers continue to struggle with varroa infestations in their hives.
This collection describes how to design and build a bee hotel to support native pollinator species.
Appendix 3 of the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, provides a list of plants that create hollow or pithy twigs and stems that can be used as a source of nest materials for bee hotels.
This factsheet answers basic questions about Africanized honey bees. (Part 3 of a 3-part series)
This factsheet discusses how to identify and conserve squash bees, an important pollinator of squash, zucchini, pumpkins and many gourds.
The second chapter in the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, highlights some of the common occupants of bee hotels in North Carolina and their nesting requirements. It also details the seasons when adults are most often active (foraging and building nests) and describes body sizes and tunnel diameters.
This factsheet describes the biology of leafcutter bees, genus Megachile.
This factsheet describes the small hive beetle, its life cycle and how to prevent infestations of beehives by the beetle. It includes summaries of recommended treatments to control the beetles inside and outside the hive.
This appendix to the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, summarizes the best practices suggested throughout the document.
Appendix 4 in the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, provides detailed building plans for constructing a simple bee shelter.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of bees and addresses how to control them as an insect in turf.
This chapter in the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, responds to critiques of bee hotels and their impact on bee populations.
This guide introduces readers to some of the most common visitors to gardens in North Carolina, particularly in turfgrass-dominated areas. Readers will glean basic information about bees, wasps, butterflies, flies, beetles, and true bugs found among wildflowers in these locations.
This updated entomology factsheet expands upon the previous entomology insect note on questions around honey bee removal by providing expanded information on diagnosis and treatment options for both residential and commercial property owners.
Abstract 2 of the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, lists plants that may be used in nesting materials for bees.
Appendix 5 of, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, provides a list of additional resources about bees, wasps, and pollinator gardening.
The Busy World of Bees Curriculum - First Grade Educator's Guide by NC 4-H, NC State Extension, and Syngenta.
Hive Helpers curriculum - 4th Grade Facilitators Guide by NC 4-H, NC State Extension, and Syngenta. Every spring and summer, youth and adults alike enjoy sweet-smelling flowers and listening to the buzzing sound that comes from the rapidly beating wings of busy bees. Through a series of seven lessons and multiple experiential activities, youth will learn how critical bees are to our agricultural industry and native ecosystems. They will explore different types of bees, their structures and functions, how they forage for food, pollinate plants and the ways bees share information. Youth will study native bees and the honey bee and discover the significant role they play in production of delicious and healthy food that humans have been eating for centuries; such as apples, blueberries, cherries, watermelons, almonds.
