Bee Warned! Monster Bees!

[beautress]

I found this mean bee warning, and was wondering why in this world this bee that was found, four times the size of European bees, with a picture of a caucasian young guy showing off his bottled bee that is 4 cm. (1.5" give or take a millimeter) The huge bee was thought to be extinct!

And now, the article du jour:

World’s Largest “Nightmare Bee” Thought Extinct Discovered Alive

A massive big, black wasp-like bee, described as the world’s largest and thought to have gone extinct, has been rediscovered by scientist alive. The bee, known as Wallace’s Giant Bee (Megachile pluto), was named after its discoverer, British naturalist and explorer Alfred Russell Wallace. Wallace found the massive species and described it in 1858. At the time, Wallace described the be as “a large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a stag-beetle.”

There's lots more info here: World’s Largest “Nightmare Bee” Thought Extinct Discovered Alive

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[beautress]

Leading Honey Producing States In The US
Rank US State Honey production in 2014 (in 1,000 pounds)
Leading Honey Producing States In The US
1 North Dakota 42,140
2 South Dakota 24,360
3 Florida 14,700​

4 Montana 14,256​

5 California 12,480
6 Texas 9,048
7 Minnesota 7,920
8 Michigan 5,733
9 Georgia 4,526
10 Louisiana 4,032
​

"North Dakota is the top honey producing state in the country. In 2014, this state reported a total of 42.14 million pounds of honey. This equates to a value of more than $84 million. The state, in 2010, had approximately 246 registered beekeepers, although that number has been growing each year."​

 

[beautress]

Does anyone at USMB raise bees for horticultural or family farm business?

 

[HenryBHough]

Good news for arthritis suffers everywhere!

Cost of injectable bee venom's gonna tumble!

 

[harmonica]

fake

 

[beautress]

Good news for arthritis suffers everywhere!

Cost of injectable bee venom's gonna tumble!

Lol, HenryBHough! I don't know about extra large Indonesian female bees, but our local bees are best ignored and allowed to buzz around the fields and flowers they find...But a bee bigger than our Big bumblebees you see all the time around here (well, if you get off the computer and go outside once in a while to the 14 acres surrounding my little quilt den...

I guess I could grow bees here. I wonder how many pounds of bee honey I'd have to sell at $2 a pound to cover the cost of my first visit to the ER with anaphylactic shock....

Maybe I'll just go to youtube and find a video of honey bees minding their own business and a photographer who is not into annoying winged creatures with 6 legs and a hairy belly.

I found this great ID chart for bumble bees created by Jessica Beckham with all credits here: Texas Bumble Identification

She says this Bumble ID chart is only pertinent to the female bees (likely workers and pollen collectors):

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[Dekster]

I have seen some pretty damn big Japanese giant hornets in our area. Fortunately they snap in half and die if you whack them. Unfortunately, they could put you in the ER pretty quick if they sting you even if you are not otherwise allergic to bees.

 

[beautress]

fake

lol. Ya think? I thought this was tantamount to finding the Ivory-billed Woodpecker that was extinct early on in the last century.

From Wikipedia in Bing:

Ivory-billed woodpecker - Wikipedia

Ivory-billed woodpecker - Wikipedia

Overview

hunting by collectors devastated the population of ivory-billed woodpeckers in the late 19th century. It was generally considered extinct in the 1920s when a pair turned up in Florida, only to be shot for specimens.
In 1932, a Louisiana state representative, Mason Spencer of Tallulah, disproved premature reports of the demise of the species when, armed with a gun and a hunting permit, he killed an ivory-billed woodpecker along the Tensas River and took the specimen to his state wildlife office in Baton Rouge.
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But I'm goin' way off topic of bees, hoping to work my way to finding someone here who may have ever raised honey bees.
Native Texas bees are:

Bumble bees

The Carpenter bee:

Squash bee

Leaf cutter bee:

Sweat bee

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[peach174]

fake

Not fake

Back from the dead: World’s biggest bee, thought to be extinct for decades, found in Indonesia

A giant wasp-like insect with the face of a stag beetle was just re-discovered by a wildlife photographer on an unspecified island in Indonesia. The insect hadn’t been spotted since 1981 and was thought to be extinct for decades.

 

[harmonica]

fake

Not fake

Back from the dead: World’s biggest bee, thought to be extinct for decades, found in Indonesia

A giant wasp-like insect with the face of a stag beetle was just re-discovered by a wildlife photographer on an unspecified island in Indonesia. The insect hadn’t been spotted since 1981 and was thought to be extinct for decades.

like UFOs