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| Stings |
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| Diseases |
| Pests |
| Varroa Mite |
| Tracheal Mite |
| Wax Moth |
| Small Hive Beetle |
| Annual Maintenance |
| Beginner's Corner |
| Beekeeping Gear |
| Extraction |
| Glossary of Terms |
Beekeeping Glossary
A
Anaphylactic Shock: A sudden and severe allergic reaction characterized by a sharp drop in blood pressure, swelling, and difficulty breathing
Apiary: A place where bees are kept, especially for commercial or agricultural purposes.
Apiarist: A beekeeper.
Apiculture: The cultivation of bees for commercial or agricultural purposes.
B
Bee Bread: The mix of pollen and honey eaten by worker bees.
Bee Brush: A tool for gently removing bees of comb.
Bee Plants: Plants that are frequented by bees for nectar and pollen.
Bottom Boards: The floor of a beehive.
Brood: Immature bees, including eggs, larvae, and pupae.
C
Cap: Wax covering of a cell in a comb.
Capping: The thin wax covering on cells full of honey.
Cell: Single hexagonal unit in comb for storing honey or raising brood.
Comb: Back to back arrangement of hexagonal wax cells that hold eggs, brood, pollen, or honey.
Colony: A population of bees consisting of worker bees, drones, and one queen, living together in a hive as a social unit.
D
Domestic Bee: A worker bee in the second stage of its life. It spends its time maintaining the hive.
Drone: Male bee whose only purpose is to inseminate the queen.
E
Entrance Reducers: Devices to limit the size of the entrance to a hive.
F
Forager Bee: A worker bee in the final stage of its life. It spends its time seeking out and collecting pollen and nectar.
Foundation: Sheets of wax embossed with cells.
Frames: Wooden structures for holding comb in a hive.
H
Hive: A structure for housing bees or a colony of bees in such a structure.
Hive Tool: A tool for removing the capping off the comb.
N
Nectar: A carbohydrate secreted from glands in different parts of plants, mainly flowers.
Nuc-box: A small hive used to start new colonies after splitting a hive.
Nurse Bee: A bee in the first stage of its life. It spends its time feeding brood and maintaining the hive.
P
Pheromone: A chemical attractant or signal.
Pollen: The male sex cells of plants.
Pollen Patties: A mixture of pollen, honey, and a pollen supplement fed to colonies in early spring.
Propolis: Also known as "bee glue," a resin from tree buds used to seal cracks in a hive.
Pupae: The stage in the life cycle when the larvae is in a cocoon.
Q
Queen: The bee responsible for laying eggs. Each hive has only one queen.
Queen Excluder: A device for keeping the queen out of the honey supers
R
Re-queening: Introducing a new queen into a colony.
Royal Jelly: A particular form of bee bread fed to larvae to develop them into queens.
S
Smoker: A device for introducing smoke into a hive.
Sugar Shake Method: A means of checking for mites using icing sugar. A cup of bees is placed in a jar. Icing sugar is added. The jar is shaken rather vigorously. The bees and sugar are then emptied onto a paper plate, where the mites are counted. For more information refer to the pests page.
Sugar Syrup: A 2:1 mixture of sugar and water by weight. Sugar syrup is typically feed to a colony in the fall and early spring. Some beekeepers feed their hives throughout the winter in temperate climates.
Super: A deep wooden box that houses ten frames
Supercedure: The process of replacing a faltering queen with a new queen. The colony creates supercedure cells near the top of a frames. The cells point downward and are recognizable by their elongated shape.
Swarming: The aggregation of bees for the purpose of moving to a new nest.
Swarm Cells: Comb cells used for rearing new queens. The cells are elongated, appearing near or on the bottom of frames.
T
Tracheal Mite: A parasite that lives in the trachea of a bee.
V
Varroa Mite: A parasite that lives on a bee.