General Beekeeping Terms (not all inclusive)

Abdomen:  The hinder part of the bee's body. The segments behind the thorax, containing the digestive and reproductive organs; also enclosing the honey stomach and the sting.

Apiary:  An Apiary or Bee Yard is the location where Honey Bee colonies are kept in Beehives by a beekeeper.

Apiculture:  Apiculture or Beekeeping is the maintenance and raising of Honey Bee colonies by a beekeeper.

Apiology:  The study of honey bees

Apiologist:  One who keeps bees, (see Beek below)

Apis Mellifera:  Apis = bee; Apis Mellifera = Honey Bee (honey carrying bee).

Bearding:  When bees congregate on the outside of the hive, usually on the front side. Done to keep the temperature inside the hive down, usually on hot days or when the hive is overcrowded with bees and/or honey stores.

Bee Bread:  A mix of pollen, honey and royal jelly prepared by the nurse bees for feeding the bee larvae, the drones and the queen.

Beek: (see Beekeeper below) Beekeeper Geek = BEEK.  Signs you might be a beek include; thinking over sized heavy white clothing is sexy, giving bees wax lip gloss to all your friends for Christmas, thinking powered sugar is a treatment for Varroa mites instead of a topping for bundt cake, or you are more worried about NUCS than nukes.

Beehive:  Man-made enclosure in which a colony of bees is kept by the beekeeper. One bee colony in one hive.

Beekeeper:  (see Beek above) A person obsessed with the keeping of honey bees.  Characterized by addictive behaviors such as monopolizing conversations talking only about bees, spending the family budget on bee keeping equipment, waking in the middle of the night dreaming about bees and honey, etc.  Myopic view of the world, sees everything from the perspective of the honeybee.

Beekeeping:  Beekeeping or Apiculture is the maintenance of Honey Bee colonies by a beekeeper.

Bee Space:  A space between 6 mm and 8 mm permitting free passage for bees. Bees will use wax and/or propolis to close any gap beyond a comb that is smaller than 6 mm, attaching the comb to the adjacent surface. Gaps wider than 8 mm will be utilized by the bees for building extra comb, mostly for drone cells, but also for honey.

Bee Yard:  An Apiary or Bee Yard is the location where Honey Bee colonies are kept in Beehives by a beekeeper.

Bees' Nest:  A Bees’ Nest or Bee Nest is a place or structure occupied by the Bee Colony in which they raise their young and store their food; the Bee Colony’s habitat. For example: tree hollows, caves, house walls, compost bins, utility boxes or sometimes in the open suspended from the ceiling or a branch.

Beeswax:  Beeswax is the substance from which bees build their combs. It is produced by the worker bees. Tiny wax scales are secreted from the bees’ body, i.e. from their wax gland in the abdomen. The workers use these wax scales as building material, forming hexagonal shaped comb cells with their jaws.  Sometime referred to as ones business.

Bottom Board:  The floor of a bee hive.

Brood:  Eggs, larvae and pupae of all castes in the bee colony; developing bees.

Brood Box, Brood boxes:  The box or boxes of a bee hive containing the brood of the colony, usually the bottom box(es) of a hive. Also referred to as the brood chamber.

Brood capping:  When the mature larvae are ready to moult into pupae worker bees cover the cell with brood capping, made from wax and bee hair. The capping’s are usually brown.

Brood chamber or Brood Nest:  The part of the hive in which the brood is reared; may include one or more hive bodies and the combs within. Also referred to as the brood box(es).

Burr comb:  Small pieces of comb outside of the normal space in the frame where beekeepers want the bees to build the comb. When stacking boxes on top of each other, not maintaining the bee space between the top of frames in the lower box and the bottom of frames in the top box, leads to the building of burr comb.

Capped Brood:  See Pupae.

Capping:  Commonly the thin layer of beeswax found over cells of ripe honey. The worker bees seal comb cells filled with honey to preserve it. On new comb the capping’s are usually white.

Castes:  The three types of bees in the colony: queen, drones and worker bees.

Colony (of bees):  The entirety of all bees occupying a bees' nest or a beehive, containing queen, drones, workers, and brood in all stages. Also referred to as bee family.

Comb:  A sheet of hundreds of hexagonal cells made of beeswax used to store brood, pollen and honey. For increased strength and more efficient brood temperature control the adjacent cells are constructed back-to-back on both sides of the sheet. As the bee colony grows it builds more and more sheets of comb, side by side, spaced apart just wide enough to let bees crawl in between, minimizing the heat loss to the surroundings.

Drawn comb:  After the beekeeper has inserted a frame with foundation into the hive the bees start drawing out the comb by extending the impressed hexagonal comb cells, usually to a depth of 12-15 mm, on both sides of the sheet. The term distinguishes frames containing such drawn out comb from frames with only foundation.

Drone:  Drones are male bees and have no stinger. They are broader built than worker bees or the queen and have much bigger eyes. Drones do not perform any colony duties and need to be fed by worker bees. Their main purpose is impregnating a virgin queen. There are a few hundred drones in a colony during spring and summer, reduced to half a dozen during autumn and winter. Drones improve well being of a colony.

Drone comb:  Comb that is made up of cells larger than cells for worker brood, usually 5.9 to 7 mm diameter, in which drones are reared and honey and pollen are stored.

Foragers:  Worker bees which are usually three or more weeks old and work outside to collect nectar, pollen, water and propolis.

Flight Path:  Refers to the direction bees fly when leaving their colony and usually in opposite direction returning to their colony. By choice bees don't circle around their hive when they leave for foraging flights or when they return. If the entrance of the hive is facing east, they will begin their journey by going east, and approach from the east when landing.

Foundation or Comb Foundation:  A man-made thin sheet of beeswax bearing the impression of comb cells on both sides. It provides the mid-rib or center of a honeycomb. It is inserted into frames by the beekeeper and provides the bees with some guidance where and how the beekeeper would like them to build the comb. By using the inserted sheet as a building foundation, the bees build straight comb within the frame which can be easily pulled out of the hive for comb inspection. In the wild, bees build their comb without any guidance, adapting to the surroundings.

Frames:  The purpose of using frames is being able to remove combs out of the hive without destroying them. Wooden frames, holding a sheet of foundation, are commonly used by beekeepers and inserted into each hive box. The bees draw out the comb within the perimeters of each frame. The frames with the comb inside can be removed for brood inspection and honey collection.

Guard Bees:  Worker bees about three weeks old, which have their maximum amount of alarm pheromone and venom; they challenge all incoming bees and other intruders.

Hive:  See Beehive.

Hive Tool:  A flat metal device with a lifting hook at one end and a flat blade at the other; used to open hives, pry apart and scrape frames.

Honey:  Honey is the produced by Honey Bees by collecting Nectar from flowers and sequentially passing it on from one bee to another, each bee adding enzymes to the nectar and absorbing the water content until the honey is ready to be stored in comb cells, made by the bees from beeswax. Bees make Honey and store it as food reserve for their own consumption during times when no nectar can be collected (winter, rain, drought) – not as a gift for the beekeeper. Honey is the carbohydrate in the bees’ diet.

Honey Flow or Nectar Flow:  An abundant source of nectar from trees and plants being collected by bees.

Langstroth Hive:  The Langstroth hive is the standard beehive in many parts of the world, however within the term 'Langstroth standard' there are about ninety sub species, some of which are totally incompatible with each other.

Larvae:  In a bee colony, larvae are also referred to as “open brood” or "unsealed brood" because the cells are uncapped. The number of days the developing bee spends as a larva varies (worker six days, drone six and ½ days, queen five and ½ days). Larvae are white and lay in a curled “C” shape at the bottom of their wax cell. When the larvae are ready to moult into pupae they change into an upright position in the cell and worker bees cover the cell with brood capping.

Mating flight:  The flight taken by a virgin queen while she mates in the air with several drones.

Nasonov pheromone:  A pheromone released from the Nasonov gland under the tip of the abdomen of worker bees; serves primarily as an orientation pheromone. It is essential to swarming behavior and the release of this pheromone is set off by disturbance of the colony.

Nectar:  A liquid rich in sugars, produced by plants and secreted by nectary glands in their flowers. Honey Bees collect nectar as the raw material for producing honey.

Nucleus: A hive of bees which consists of fewer frames than a typical hive and may be smaller in size. A nucleus usually consists of two to five frames of comb and used primarily for starting new colonies or rearing or storing queens; also called and commonly referred to a nuc.

Nurse bees:  Young bees, usually three to ten days old. Nurse bees feed and take care of developing brood, feed the drones and the queen.

Package:  A quantity of adult bees (2 to 5 pounds), with or without a queen, contained in a screened shipping cage with a food source.

Pollen:  Pollen is also collected by the bees from flowers and stored in comb cells as food reserve. Pollen is the protein in the bees’ diet.

Propolis:  Propolis is a mixture produced by the bees from tree resins and other botanical sources. It is used to close all unwanted narrow gaps, cracks or holes of the enclosure/hive to prevent diseases and parasites from entering the hive and to inhibit fungal and bacterial growth. 

Pupae:  Pupae are referred to as “capped brood” or "sealed brood" because the cells are capped. Beneath the brood capping larvae moult into pupae. The pupae remain under the brood capping until they moult into an adult bee and chew their way out of the cell.  Like the larval stage, pupal developmental time varies (worker 12 days, drone 14 ½ days, queen eight days).

Queen:  The queen bee is the only reproductive female in the colony. Her head and thorax are similar in size to that of the worker but has a longer and plumper abdomen than a worker. The queen also has a stinger, but its barbs are reduced. That's why she does not die when she uses it.

Queen cage:  A special cage in which queens are shipped and/or introduced to a colony, usually with four to seven nurse bees, called attendants. The cage is closed with a candy plug which is chewed open by the bees in the colony where the caged queen is inserted.

Queen cell:  A special cell built by the bees in which a queen is reared. A queen cell is usually 30 mm to 40mm in length and hangs vertically from the comb.

Queen Excluder:  A perforated sheet of plastic, wire, or bamboo screen placed between two hive supers to separate the brood chamber and the honey super. It prevents the queen (and drones) from passing through but allows the workers to go through.

Raw Honey:  Raw honey is honey as it exists in the beehive or as obtained by extraction, settling or straining, without adding heat. Raw honey contains some pollen and may contain small particles of wax.

Re-queen:  To replace an existing queen by removing her from the hive and introducing a new queen.

Retinue:  The honey bee queen is normally attended by a group of worker bees called the queen retinue. Older egg laying queens are more attractive to workers than newly mated queens and virgin queens are the least attractive. The workers groom the queen by touching her with their mouth parts, antennae and forelegs. This is sometimes called retinue behavior. The head and abdomen of the queen are more often touched than the thorax. During winter the contact between the queen and the attending workers is reduced. 

Royal jelly:  Royal jelly is a protein rich, milky white secretion of the hypopharyngeal gland of nurse bees, used to feed the queen, all young bee larvae for the first two days of their existence and the queen larva until it pupates.

Scout bees:  Worker bees searching for a new source of pollen, nectar, propolis, water, or a new home for a swarm of bees.

Sealed Honey or capped honey:  Honey which has fully ripened by bees and covered with capping’s of wax.

Slumgum:  Slumgum is the residue of the beeswax rendering process. Lumps of slumgum are very attractive to bees, especially when heated by the sun. They can be used to attract bee swarms, and some people therefore prefer applying melted slumgum on the sides inside of supers.

Smoker:  A metal container with attached bellows which burns organic fuels to generate smoke; used to control aggressive behavior of bees during colony inspections.

Super:  A hive body or box. Placed above the bottom brood box to either increase the brood chamber or store honey. When used above a Queen Excluder it is referred to as "Honey Super".

Swarm:  A Swarm is a congregation of a few thousand honey bees. It is that part of a Bee Colony that has split from their colony and has left their nest/hive in order to multiply; bees without any nest material (without combs). The primary swarm is the first swarm to leave the parent colony, usually with the old queen. Sometimes, within a week after the primary swarm, one or two secondary swarms leave the colony, each with a virgin queen. Sometimes a primary swarm, in particular a very large one, contains the old queen and one of her daughter virgin queens, causing unrest in the swarm until the swarm separates in two; such a two-headed swarm can only be captured in two separate swarm boxes as they will not settle in one hive.

Swarming season:  The time of year when bee swarms usually emerge; usually spring to early summer.

Thorax:  The central region of an insect to which the wings and legs are attached.

Unsealed brood:  Eggs and young larvae up to the stage when the cells are capped over with brood capping’s.

Virgin queen:  An unmated queen bee.

Worker Bee:  Worker bees are non-reproductive female bees and have a sting. Workers collect nectar, pollen, water and propolis and rear brood and carry out most other colony duties. Worker bees make up most bees in a normal and healthy colony.