Hello everyone, and happy World Bee Day 2026! After being unmoderated for quite a while, we’re pleased to announce some significant changes to r/bees.

 

New Mod Team:

The subreddit has been handed off to an all-new team of moderators:

u/Commercial-Sail-5915 (they/them): I fell in love with bugs while knee-deep in my university's native pollinator gardens, and I've been stuck on Hymenoptera ever since! I'm an enthusiastic photographer and identifier of North American aculeata on iNaturalist (more so wasps but I love a good bee as well!) and I am also a mod over at r/bugidentification. If you need help determining whether your bug is a bee, I'm happy to help you over at my metaphorical other desk!

u/Escapingspirals: 3rd generation keeper of honeybees. Lover of various types of solitary and social bees across the world. I’m also a professional horticulturalist/farmer and also a mod of r/queenspotting (for those in the beekeeping community) and r/flowers.

u/That_Biology_Guy (he/him): I’m a postdoctoral researcher working on the ecology and evolution of wild bees. As of this fall I’ll have been studying bees for a full decade, and I still love them! I also enjoy helping with identification of various Hymenoptera on both Reddit and iNaturalist.

We’ve already worked through 1000+ entries in the very backed-up mod queue and discussed several potential changes. We may also seek out additional new mods from the community depending on how things go over the next few weeks.

 

New Community Rules:

The subreddit rules have been substantially revised, including a few additions. We may make further tweaks in the near future, but here’s a detailed list of the current rules along with some explanation of our reasoning for each.

>1. "Bee" nice!
Let's keep the community respectful, please! No bigotry, insults, or general rudeness. Keep in mind that not everyone has the same knowledge. Questions asked in good faith should be answered in good faith (e.g. no joke responses to genuine requests), and all discussions should remain civil.

Self-explanatory, though with one addition. Please refrain from joking/unhelpful comments in top-level replies to genuine requests for information or help.

>2. Keep it bee-related
r/bees is for content about bees! Off-topic posts will be locked or removed as necessary. If you're looking for a wasp sub, post in r/WASPs or r/waspaganda! Fly posts can go in r/Diptera. You may also want to check out the general insect sub r/Entomology, or r/whatsthisbug for identification requests.

By far the single biggest reason for user reports has been submissions of questionable relevance to r/bees. These fall into a few different categories:

• Non-bee identification requests: Many submissions ask for help IDing wasps, flies, or other bee mimics. Our tentative policy is that most such posts will be removed, though we may consider some exceptions.
• Photos of known wasps/flies: If you are aware that the subject of your photo is not a bee, please submit it to one of the other suggested subreddits instead. However, images of other insects may be allowed if they are explicitly relevant to bees (e.g. for comparative ID).
• Miscellaneous “bee” content: Bee-themed material (art, memes, articles etc.) is allowed, but may be removed if it’s low quality, frequently reposted, or very tangentially relevant.

>3. No bug hate/misinformation
Loving bees does not give a pass to hate on other bugs! Yes, even wasps. Yes, even specifically yellowjackets! Comments calling for unnecessary cruelty (e.g. “kill it with fire”) or spreading harmful misinformation will be removed.

While this subreddit is focused on bees, we are an unapologetically pro-wasp community. After all, bees are evolutionarily a subset of wasps, so it’s impossible to love one without the other! We recognize that insects need to be removed in some cases (e.g. nests near human dwellings, invasive species, agricultural pests), but vitriol towards them is not justified.

>4. No sting posts/medical advice
Do not post images of insect stings or bites, and do not seek (or attempt to provide) medical advice. Please see a medical professional if you're concerned for your health.

We have some very knowledgeable bee experts around, but that doesn’t mean they can substitute for health professionals. That goes for humans as well as pets.

>5. No advertising or self-promotion
This includes sneaking your Etsy into the comments. Relevant self-promotion may be allowed on a case-by-case basis, but must be approved in advance by the moderation team.

We encourage providing sources or attributions along with any shared images. However, anything that involves clear self-promotion needs to be OK’d by a mod first, and advertising products for sale is not allowed.

>6. No AI-generated content
There will be a zero-tolerance policy for AI-generated images or text. Posts or comments containing either will be removed.

The use of generative AI is actively harmful due to its environmental impacts, disregard for intellectual property/authorship, and frequent promotion of misinformation.

 

Upcoming Changes:

We’re considering a number of further improvements that we hope to work on implementing once we've gotten into the groove of things:

• Greatly improved pinned post on bee/wasp identification
• Community wiki with links to helpful resources
• More and/or clearer categories for post flairs
• User flairs (including trusted users?)
• Standardized responses for some situations (e.g., feeding honey to bees)
• Better use of automoderator for flagging/locking submissions

Of course, we’re also open to hearing from the community, so let us know any thoughts or suggestions you may have in the comments! In particular, we’re hoping to get some consensus on how you’d like posts featuring non-bee insects to be treated, which has been a subject of ongoing discussion.