Beekeeping glossary
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Beekeepers Glossary
Abdomen: Segmented posterior part of bee containing heart, honey, stomach, intestines, reproductive organs, and sting.
Acarapis woodi: Scientific name of acarine mite, which infests tracheae of bees.
Acarine disease: Condition caused by Acarapis woodi.
Acid board (also Fume board): A rimmed hive cover containing a pad of absorbent material into which benzadehyde or butyric anhydride (bee repellents) is poured. Used to remove bees from honey supers.
AHB: Africanized honeybee.
Alighting board: Extended entrance of beehive on which incoming bees land.
Allele: One of a pair or series of alternative genes that can occur at a given point on a chromosome.
American foul brood (AFB): Contagious disease of bee larvae caused by Bacillus larvae.
Antennae: Slender jointed feelers, which bear certain sense organs, on head of insects.
Anther: Part of plant that develops and contains pollen.
Apiarist: Beekeeper.
Apiary: Group of bee colonies kept in one location (bee yard).
Apiculture: The science and art of studying and using honey bees for man’s benefit.
Apis: The genus to which the honey bee belongs.
Apis mellifera: Scientific name of the Western honey bee.
Apis cerana: Scientific name of the Eastern honey bee, the honey producer of South Asia, also called Apis indica.
Apis dorsata: Scientific name for the large honey bee of Asia which builds open air nests of single comb suspended from tree branches, rocky ledges, etc.
Apis florea: Scientific name for the small honey bee of Asia.
Artificial insemination: See instrumental insemination.
Autopollination: The automatic transfer of pollen from anthers to stigma within a flower as it opens.
Bacillus larvae: Bacterial organism causing American foulbrood.
Balling a queen: Clustering around unacceptable queen by worker bees to form a tight ball; usually queen dies or is killed in this way.
Bee bread: Pollen stored in cells of the comb and used by bees for food.
Bee dance: Anthropomorphic term for one of several physical maneuvers conducted within a bee colony; it has very inaccurate correlations relative to a forager’s flight experience in the field (distance and direction of the site visited), but odor on the dancer’s body appears to be the means of communication that recruits use to find the same nectar or pollen source.
Bee escape: Device to let bees pass in only one direction; usually inserted between honey supers and brood chambers, for removal of bees from honey supers.
Bee gum: Usually hollow log hive.
Beehive: Domicile prepared for colony of honey bees.
Bee louse: Relatively harmless insect that gets on honey bees, but larvae can damage honeycomb; scientific name is Braula coeca.
Bee metamorphosis: The transformation of the bee from egg to larva to pupa and finally to the adult stage.
Bee moth: See wax moth.
Bee paralysis: An adult bee disease of chronic and acute type caused by different viruses.
Bee space: A space (1/4- to 5/16-inch) big enough to permit free passage for a bee but too small to encourage comb building. Leaving bee space between parallel beeswax combs and between the outer comb and the hive walls is the basic principle of hive construction.
Beeswax: Wax secreted from glands on the underside of bee abdomen; molded by bees to form honeycomb.
Bee tree: A hollow tree occupied by a colony of bees.
Bee veil: See veil.
Bee venom: Poison injected by bee sting.
Bee yard: (See Apiary).
Bottom board: Floor of beehive.
Brace comb: Section of comb built between and attached to other combs.
Braula coeca: See bee louse.
Boardman feeder: A small, wooden feeder placed at the hive entrance and holding an inverted pint or quart glass jar of sugar syrup. Not recommended.
Brood: Immature or developing stages of bees; includes eggs, larvae (unsealed brood), and pupae (sealed brood).
Brood chamber: The area of the hive where the brood is reared; usually the lowermost hive bodies.
Brood comb: Wax comb from brood chamber of hive containing brood.
Brood nest: Area of hive where bees are densely clustered and brood is reared.
Burr comb: Comb built out of place, between movable frames or between the hive bodies.
Capped brood: Brood (either last larval stage or pupal stage) that has been capped over in its cell.
Capped honey: Cells full of honey, closed or capped with beeswax.
Cappings: Beeswax covering of cells of honey which are removed before extracting.
Cappings spinner: A centrifuge with wire-screened baskets used to separate honey from wax.
Castes: The three types of individual bees (workers, drones, and queen) that comprise the adult population of a bee colony.
Carniolan bees: A race of honey bees which originated in the southern part of the Austrian Alps and northern Yugoslavia.
Caucasian bees: A race of honey bees native to the high valleys of the Central Caucasus.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD): a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006. The cause or causes of the syndrome are not yet fully understood.
Cell: The six-sided compartment of a honeycomb, used to raise brood or to store honey and pollen. Worker cells approximate five to the linear inch, drone cells are larger averaging about four to the linear inch.
Cell cup: Initially constructed base of queen cell; also made artificially for queen rearing.
Chilled brood: Brood that has died because of chilling. It can be a result of mistreatment of the bees by the beekeeper. It also can be caused by a pesticide hit that primarily kills off the adult population, or by a sudden drop in temperature during rapid spring buildup. The brood must be kept warm at all times; nurse bees will cluster over the brood to keep it at the right temperature. When a beekeeper opens the hive (to inspect, remove honey, check the queen, or just to look) and prevents the nurse bees from clustering on the frame for too long, the brood can become chilled, deforming or even killing some of the bees.
Chromosomes: The structures in a cell that carry the genes.
Chunk honey: A jar of honey containing both liquid (extracted) honey and a piece of comb with honey.
Cleansing flight: Flight bees take after days of confinement, during which they void their feces.
Clipped queen: Queen whose wing (or wings) has been clipped for identification purposes.
Cluster: Loosely, any group of bees that forms a relatively compact aggregation. A winter cluster is composed of all the bees in the colony huddled as closely together as necessary to maintain the required temperature. As the ambient temperature increases, the cluster expands until it loses its identity but it will reappear if the temperature drops.
Cold Way ----- The frames in the hive are positioned so that the top bars are at 90 degrees to the entrance. (See also Warm Way)
Colony: Social community of several thousand worker bees, usually containing one queen, with or without drones. (See social insects.)
Comb: (See honeycomb).
Comb foundation: Thin sheet of beeswax impressed by mill to form bases of cells; some foundation also is made of plastic and metal.
Comb honey: Honey marketed and eaten in the comb.
Corbicula: See pollen basket.
Creamed honey: Honey made to crystallize smoothly by seeding with 10 percent crystallized honey and storing at about 57°F.
Cross pollination: Transfer of pollen between plants which are not of identical genetic material.
Crystallized honey: Honey hardened by formation of dextrose-hydrate crystals. Can be reliquefied by gentle heat.
Cut comb honey: Comb honey cut into appropriate sizes and packed in plastic.
Dearth: Severe to total lack of availability, usually in reference to nectar and/or pollen.
Demaree: Method of swarm control, by which queen is separated from most of brood; devised by man of that name.
Dextrose: Also known as glucose; one of principal sugars of honey.
Diastase: Enzyme that aids in converting starch to sugar.
Diploid: An organism or cell with two sets of chromosomes, for example, worker and queen honey bees.
Disappearing disease: A condition in which colonies become weak from causes which are not readily identifiable.
Division board: Flat board used to separate two colonies or colony into two parts.
Division board feeder: A wooden or plastic trough which is placed in the hive in a frame space to feed the colony honey or sugar syrup.
Drawn comb: Comb having the cells built out (drawn) by honey bees from a sheet of foundation. Cells are about 1/2-inch deep.
Drift: Movement of bees from their original hive into a neighboring hivefrequent with drones and surprisingly common with workers.
Drone comb: Comb with about four cells to the inch and in which drones are reared.
Drone layer: A queen which lays only unfertilized eggs which always develop into drones. Results from improperly or nonmated queen or an older queen who has run out of sperm.
Dwindling: Rapid or unusual depletion of hive population, usually in the spring.
Dysentery: The discharge of fecal matter by adult bees within the hive. Commonly contributing conditions are nosema disease, excess moisture in the hive, starvation conditions, and low quality food. Tan, brown, or black fecal smears on combs or outside of hive indicate such a problem.
Eke: A very short hive box 2-4 inches (50mm-100mm) deep typically used in National Bee Hives to house feeders or anything requiring a little "extra space".
Escape board: Board with one or more bee escapes on it to permit bees to pass one way. Used to empty one or more supers of bees.
European foulbrood (EFB): Brood disease of bees caused by Streptococcus pluton and possibly associated organisms.
Extracted honey: Honey removed from the comb by centrifugal motion (in a special machine called an extractor) and marketed in the liquid form.
Extractor: Machine that rotates honeycombs at sufficient speed to remove honey from them.
Festoon: A unique cluster of bees that link themselves together by their tarsi (feet) in a loose network between combs in a hive. Normally, these are aggregates of wax-producing bees.
Field bees: Those bees in the hive who are mature enough to fly from the hive on foraging missions; also termed forager bees.
Food chamber: Hive body containing honey provided particularly for overwintering bees.
Foundation: (See Comb foundation).
Frame: Rectangular, wooden honeycomb supports, suspended by top bars within hive bodies.
Fructose: (See Levulose).
Full sisters: Queen or worker bees produced by a single queen and sired by different drones that are related to each other as brothers (used in bee breeding).
Fumagillin: Antibiotic given bees to control nosema disease.
Fume board: See Acid board.
Galleria mellonella: Scientific name of greater wax moth, whose larvae destroy honeycomb.
Gamete: A male or a female reproductive cell (egg or sperm).
Gene: A unit of inheritance located at a specific location in a chromosome.
Gene pool: The genetic base available to bee breeders for stock improvement.
Germplasm: All the hereditary material that can potentially contribute to the production of new individuals.
Giant bee: (See Apis dorsata).
Glucose: (See Dextrose).
Grafting: The transfer of young larvae from worker cells to queen cups.
Granulated honey: (See crystallized honey).
Half sisters: Queen or worker bees produced by a single queen and sired by drones that are not related to each other.
Haploid: An organism or cell with one set of chromosomes; for example, drone bee.
Hemizygous: The condition in which only one allele of a pair is present. Drones are hemizygous at all loci.
Heterosis: Hybrid vigor.
Heterozygous: An organism with unlike members of any given pair or series of alleles (bee genetics).
Hive: Man-constructed home for bees.
Hive stand: A device that elevates the bottom board up off the ground.
Hive tool: Metal tool for prying supers or frames apart.
HMF (Hydroxymethylfurfural): an organic compound derived from dehydration of sugars.
Hoffman frame: Self-spacing wooden frame of type customarily used in Langstroth hives.
Homozygous: An organism with identical members of any given pair or series of alleles.
Honey: Sweet, viscous fluid elaborated by bees from nectar obtained from plant nectaries, chiefly floral.
Honey bee: Genus Apis, family Apidae, order Hymenoptera.
Honey bound: When the brood nest is bounded or restricted by cells/comb filled with honey.
Honeycomb: Comb built by honey bees with hexagonal back-to-back cells on median midrib.
Honeydew: Sweet secretion from aphids and scale insects.
Honey extractor: (See Extractor).
Honey flow: Period when bees are collecting nectar from plants in plentiful amounts.
Honey house: Building in which honey is extracted and handled.
Honey pump: Pump for transferring liquid honey, usually from the extractor to storage tanks.
Honey stomach: (Honey sac) An enlargement of the posterior end of the oesophagus in the bee abdomen. It is the sac in which the bee carries nectar from flower to hive.
Honey sump: Temporary honey-holding area with baffles usually placed between the extractor and the honey pump; tends to hold back sizable pieces of wax and comb.
Hot room: An insulated portion of a warehouse with radiant or forced air heating that can produce temperatures up to 100°F.
Hybrid: Offspring from two unrelated (usually inbred) lines.
Hymenoptera: Order to which all bees belong, as well as ants, wasps, and certain parasitic insects.
