Is It Honey Bee or Honeybee? Bumble Bee or Bumblebee? Who Decides the Common Names of Bees?

Abstract

Anyone writing in English about bees will immediately encounter the question of whether to spell the common names as one word or two. Is it “honey bee” or “honeybee”? Is it “bumble bee” or “bumblebee”? It is easy to be confused because both spellings are frequently encountered. Bee World and Journal of Apicultural Research, like many other entomological journals, have clear rules for the common names of bees. It is “honey bee” not “honeybee,” and “bumble bee” not “bumblebee.” This follows the common names specified by the Entomological Society of America (2021a) in their database of over 2,000 common names of insects and related organisms. The list is well established and has grown considerably since it was first published in 1908. Names are reviewed by the Committee on the Common Names of Insects and voted on by the Governing Board (Entomological Society of America, 2021b). The common names follow a rule that was explained by Snodgrass (1956) in the preface to Anatomy of the Honey Bee: