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Author Topic: Glossary of Beekeeping Terms Part I  (Read 606 times)

Offline Michael Bush

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Glossary of Beekeeping Terms Part I
« on: March 09, 2023, 10:34:11 am »
https://bushfarms.com/beesterms.htm
I recommend saving the above link if you want to find these again.

Note: many of these terms are Latin and the plural of the ones with an 'a' ending will be 'ae'. The plural of the 'us' endings will be 'i'. Also meanings are given in the context of beekeeping.

7/11 or Seven/Eleven = Foundation with a cell size that is 700 cells per square decimeter with 11 cells left over. Hence 7/11. Actually 5.6mm cell size. Used because it is a size the queen dislikes laying in because it's too big for worker brood and too small for drone brood. If the queen does lay in it, it will usually be drones. It's only currently available from Walter T. Kelley

A
Abandonment = A method of getting the bees out of the supers. This is where you pull each box off the hive and set it on its end so the top and bottom are exposed. This is best done at the end of the flow but not during a dearth and just after sunset but before dark. The bees tend to wander back to the hive and you can take the supers. If there is brood in them, they will not leave. If there is a dearth you will set off a robbing frenzy. If you do it in the middle of the afternoon this will be harder to deal with. This requires handling the boxes twice. Once to take them off and once to load them up. (I'm not counting the rest of the process)

Abdomen = The posterior or third region of the body of the bee that encloses the honey stomach, stomach, intestines, sting and the reproductive organs.

Abscond = When the entire colony of bees abandons the hive because of pests, disease or other adverse conditions.

Acaracide = A chemical intended to kill mites. Usually used to refer to systemic poisons such as Amitraz, Fluvalinate, Cumaphos or other redesignated Insecticides.

Acarapis dorsalis = Mite that lives on honey bees that is indistinguishable from Tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi). It is classified differently simply based on the location where it is found, on the back.

Acarapis externus = Mite that lives on honey bees that is indistinguishable from Tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi). It is classified differently simply based on the location where it is found, on the neck.

Acarapis vagans = Mite that lives on honey bees that is indistinguishable from Tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi). It is classified differently simply based on the location where it is found, usually on the wings.

Acarapis woodi = Tracheal Mite, which infests the bees' trachea; sometimes called Acarine Disease or Isle of Wight disease.

Accelerated queen rearing = A system of mating nucs where there are usually two queens in the mating nuc a week apart, one in a nursery cage and one loose and mating. Every week the one that is now mated is removed the one in the cage is released and the new cell is put in with a hair curler cage on it.

Acute Paralysis Virus aka APV = A viral disease of adult bees which affects their ability to use legs or wings normally. It can kill adults and brood.

Africanized Honey Bees

Afterswarm = A swarm after the primary swarm. These are headed by a virgin queen.

Alarm pheromone = A chemical (iso-pentyl acetate) substance which smells similar to artificial banana flavoring, released near the worker bee's sting, which alerts the hive to an attack.

Alcohol wash = Putting a cupful of bees in a jar with alcohol to kill the bees and mites so you can count the Varroa mites. A sugar roll is a non-lethal method of doing the same.

Allergic reaction = A systemic reaction to something, such as bee venom, characterized by hives, breathing difficulty, or loss of consciousness. This should be distinguished from a normal reaction to bee venom, which is itching and burning in the general vicinity of the sting.

Alley Method = A graftless method of queen rearing system where bees are put in a "swarm box" to convince them of their queenlessness and a strip of old brood comb is cut and put on a bar for the bees to build into queen cells.

American Foulbrood

Anaphylactic shock = Constriction of the smooth muscle including the bronchial tubes and blood vessels of a human, caused by hypersensitivity to venom and resulting in sudden death unless immediate medical attention is received.

Antenna = One of two sensory organs located on the head of the bee, which enable bees to smell and taste.

Attendants = Worker bees that are attending the queen. When used in the context of queens in cages, the workers that are added to the cage to care for the queen.

Apiary = A bee yard.

Apiarist = A beekeeper.

Apiculture = The science and art of raising honey bees.

Apis mellifera mellifera

Apis mellifera = The bee originating in Europe.

B
Bacillus larvae = The outdated name for Paenibacillus Larvae, the bacteria that causes American Foulbrood.

Bacillus thuringiensis = A naturally occurring bacteria that is sprayed on empty comb to kill wax moths. Also sold to control larvae of other specific insects.

Backfilling = A term coined by Walt Wright to describe the process of the bees creating a honey bound brood nest. The process where the bees put honey in the brood nest to prevent the queen from laying and to prepare for swarming.

Baggie feeder

Bait Hive aka Decoy hive aka Swarm trap = A hive placed to attract stray swarms. Optimum bait hive: At least 20 liters of volume. 9 feet off the ground. Small entrance. Old comb. Lemongrass oil. Queen substance.

Balling the queen
Balling = Worker bees surrounding a queen either to confine her because they reject her or to confine her to protect her.

Banking queens = Putting multiple caged queens in a nuc or hive.

Bearding = When bees congregate on the front of the hive.

Bee blower = A gas or electrically driven blower used to blow bees from supers when harvesting.

Bee bread = Fermented pollen stored in the hive and used to feed brood and the queen.

Bee brush = Soft brush or whisk or large feather or handful of grass used to remove bees from combs.

Bee escape = A device constructed to permit bees to pass one way, but prevent their return; used to clear bees from supers or other uses. The most common one seems to be the Porter escape which is made to go in the hole in the inner cover. The most effective one seems to be the triangular one which is its own board.

Bee Go = Butyric which is used to drive bees from supers. Smells a lot like vomit.

Bee Gum = A piece of a hollow tree used for a hive.

Bee haver = A term coined by George Imirie. One who has bees but has not learned enough technique to be a beekeeper.

Bee jacket = A white jacket, usually with a zip on veil and elastic at the sleeves and waist, worn as protection when working bees.

Bee Parasitic Mite Syndrome aka Parasitic Mite Syndrome = A set of symptoms that are caused by a major infestation of Varroa mites. Symptoms include the presence of Varroa mites, the presence of various brood diseases with symptoms similar to that of foulbroods and sacbrood but with no predominant pathogen, AFB-like symptoms, spotty brood pattern, increased supersedure of queens, bees crawling on the ground, and a low adult bee population.

Bee Quick = A chemical, that smells like benzaldehyde that is used to drive bees from supers.

Bee space = A space between 1/4 and 3/8 inch (6mm and 10mm) which permits free passage for a bee but too small to encourage comb building, and too large to induce propolizing.

Bee suit = A pair of white coveralls made for beekeepers to protect them from stings and keep their clothes clean. Most come with zip-on veils.

Bee tree = A hollow tree occupied by a colony of bees.

Bee vac aka Bee vacuum = A vacuum used to suck up bees when doing a cutout or removal. Usually converted from a shop vac. It needs careful adjustment to not kill the bees.

Bee veil = Netting for protecting the beekeeper's head and neck from stings.

Bee venom = The poison secreted by special glands attached to the stinger of the bee which is injected into the victim of a sting.

Beehive = A box with movable frames, used for housing a colony of bees.

Beelining = Finding feral bees by establishing the line which the bees fly back to their home. This can also include marking and timing the bees to get the distance and triangulating the location by releasing the bees from various places.

Beek = Beekeeper

Beekeeper = One who keeps bees. An Apiarist.

Beeswax = A substance that is secreted by bees by special glands on the underside of the abdomen, deposited as thin scales, and used after mastication and mixture with the secretion of the salivary glands for constructing the honeycomb. Beeswax melts at approximately 145?F (63?C). The flashpoint is 400?F (204.4?C)

Better Queens method = A graftless queen rearing method similar to Isaac Hopkins' actual queen rearing method (as opposed to the "Hopkins Method"). Sort of the Alley Method but with new comb instead of old.

Betterbee = A beekeeping supply company out of New York. They have many things no one else does. They also have eight frame equipment.

Benzaldehyde = A colorless nontoxic liquid aldehyde C6H5CHO that has an odor like that of bitter almond oil, that occurs in many essential oils and is sometimes used to drive bees out of honey supers. Also the flavor added to Maraschino cherries. What Bee Quick smells like.

Black scale = Refers to dried pupa, which died of American Foulbrood.

Boardman feeder

Bottling tank = A food grade tank holding 5 or more gallons of honey and equipped with a honey gate to fill honey jars.

Bottom bar = The horizontal piece of the frame that is on the bottom of the frame.

Bottom board = The floor of a bee hive.

Bottom board feeder

Bottom supering = The act of placing honey supers under all the existing supers, directly on top of the brood box. The theory is the bees will work it better when it's directly above the brood chamber; as opposed to TOP supering which would be just putting the supers on top of the existing supers.

Box Jig = Jig for nailing boxes.

Brace comb = A bit of comb built between two combs to fasten them together, between a comb and adjacent wood, or between two wooden parts such as top bars.

Braula coeca = A wingless fly commonly known as the bee louse.

Breeder hive = The hive from which eggs or larvae are taken for queen rearing. In other words the donor hive.

Bricks = Used to keep the lids from blowing off in the wind and often used in particular configurations as visual clues as to the state of a hive.

Brood = Immature bees not yet emerged from their cells; in other words, egg, larvae or pupae.

Brood chamber = The part of the hive in which the brood is reared; may include one or more hive bodies and the combs within. Sometimes used to refer to a deep box as these are commonly used for brood.

Brood nest = The part of the hive interior in which brood is reared; usually the two bottom boxes.

Brushy Mountain = A beekeeping supply company out of North Carolina. A big proponent of all mediums and eight frame boxes. They have many items no one else has.

Buckfast = A strain of bees developed by Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey in England, bred for disease resistance, disinclination to swarm, hardiness, comb building and good temper.

Bt = Bacillus thuringiensis. A naturally occurring bacteria that is sprayed on empty comb to kill wax moths. Also sold to control larvae of other specific insects.

Burr comb = Small pieces of comb outside of the normal space in the frame where comb usually is. Brace comb would fall into this category.

C
Candy plug = A fondant type candy placed in one end of a queen cage to delay her release.

Capped brood = Immature bees whose cells have been sealed over with a brown wax cover by other worker bees.

Capping melter = Melter used to liquefy the wax from cappings as they are removed from honey combs.

Cappings = The thin wax covering over honey; once cut off of extracting frames.

Capping scratcher = A fork-like device used to remove wax cappings covering honey, so it can be extracted. Usually used on low areas that get missed by the uncapping knife.

Carniolan bees

Castes = The three types of bees that comprise the adult population of a honey bee colony: workers, drones, and queen

Carts = Used for wheeling boxes or hives around.

Caucasian bees

Cell = The hexagonal compartment of a honey comb.

Cell bar = A wooden strip on which queen cups are suspended for rearing queen bees.

Cell cup = Base of an artificial queen cell, made of beeswax or plastic and used for rearing queen bees or an empty beginning of a queen cell that the bees often build for no reason.

Cell finisher = A hive used to finish queen cells. Sometimes queenright, sometimes queenless.

Cell starter = A hive used to start queen cells. Sometimes a "swarm box" or sometimes just a queenless hive.

Chalkbrood

Checkerboarding (aka Nectar Management)

Chest hive = A hive that is laid out horizontally instead of vertically.

Chilled brood = Immature bees that have died from exposure to cold; commonly caused by mismanagement or sudden cold spells.

Chimney = When the bees fill only the center frames of honey supers.

Chinese grafting tool = Grafting tool made of plastic, horn and bamboo that has a retractable "tongue" that slides under the larvae and, when release, pushes it off of the "tongue". Popular because it is easier to operate than most grafting needles and it lifts up more royal jelly in the process. Quality varies and most recommend buying several and picking the ones you like out of those.

Chitin = Material which the exoskeleton of an insect is made of.

Chronic Paralysis Virus aka CPV = Symptoms: bees trembling, unable to fly, with K-wings and distended abdomens. One variety called the hairless black syndrome, is recognized by hairless, black shiny bees crawling at the hive entrance.

Chunk honey = Honey in the comb, but not in sections, frequently cut and packed into jars then filled with liquid honey.

Clarifying = Removing visible foreign material from honey or wax to increase its purity.

Clipping = The practice of taking part of one or both wings off of a queen both for discouraging or slowing swarming and for identification of the queen.

Cloake Board AKA FWOF (Floor without a floor) = A device to divide a colony into a queenless cell starter and reunite it as a queenright cell finisher without having to open the hive.

Cluster = The thickest part of the bees on a warm day, usually the core of the brood nest. On a day below 50F the only location where the bees are. It is used to refer both to the location and to the bees in that location.

Cocoon = A thin silk covering secreted by larval honey bees in their cells in preparation for pupation.

Coffin hive = a hive that is laid out horizontally instead of vertically.

Colony = The aggregate of worker bees, drones, queen, and developing brood living together as a family unit in a hive or other dwelling

Colony Collapse Disorder = A recently named problem where most of the bees in most of the hives in an apiary disappear leaving a queen, healthy brood and only a few bees in the hive with plenty of stores.

Comb = The wax portion of a colony in which eggs are laid, and honey and pollen are stored shaped like hexagons.

Comb foundation = A commercially made structure consisting of thin sheets of beeswax with the cell bases of worker cells embossed on both sides to induce the bees to build a particular size of cells.

Comb Honey = Honey in the wax combs, usually produced and sold as a separate unit, such as a wooden section 4-1/2" square, or a plastic round ring.

Compressing a hive = Removing all excess space that is not occupied by the bees. This is a solution to several beekeeping problems including a failure to thrive, wax moths and small hive beetles as well as good preparation for winter.

Conical escape = A cone-shaped bee escape, which permits bees, a one-way exit; used in a special escape board to free honey supers of bees.

Cordovan bees

Creamed honey = Honey that has undergone controlled granulation to produce a finely textured candied or crystallized honey which spreads easily at room temperature. This usually involves adding fine "seed" crystals and keeping at 57? F (14? C).

Crimp-wired foundation = Comb foundation into which crimp wire is embedded vertically during foundation manufacture.

Crimper = A device used to put a ripple in the frame wire to both make it tight and to distribute stress better and give more surface to bind it to the wax.

Cupralarva = A particular brand of graftless queen rearing system.

Cut-comb Honey = Comb honey cut into various sizes, the edges drained, and the pieces wrapped or packed individually

Cut-out = Removing a colony of bees from somewhere that they don't have movable comb by cutting out the combs and tying them into frames.

D
Dadant = A beekeeping supply company out of Illinois. Founded by C.P. Dadant who was a pioneer in the modern beekeeping era and invented, among other things, the Jumbo and the square Dadant box. (19 7/8? by 197/8? by 11 5/8?), published and wrote for the American Bee Journal and translated Huber?s Observations on Bees from French to English and published many books including but not limited to the later versions of The Hive and the Honey Bee.

Dadant deep = A box designed by C.P. Dadant that is 11 5/8" deep and the frame is 11 1/4" deep. Sometimes called Jumbo or Extra Deep.

Dearth = A period of time when there is no available forage for bees, due to weather conditions (rain, drought) or time of year.

Decoy hive aka Bait hive aka Swarm trap = A hive placed to attract stray swarms.

Deep = A box that is 9 5/8" deep and the frame is 9 1/4" deep. Sometimes called a Langstroth Deep.

Deformed Wing Virus = A virus spread by the Varroa mite that causes crumpled looking wings on fuzzy newly emerged bees.

Demaree = The method of swarm control that separates the queen from most of the brood within the same hive and causes them to raise another queen with the goal of a two queen hive, increased production and reduced swarming.

Depth = The measurement of a box or frame vertically

Dequeen = To remove a queen from a colony

Detritus = Wax scales and debris that sometimes build up at the bottom of a natural colony.

Dextrose = Also known as glucose, it is a simple sugar (or monosaccharide) and is one of the two main sugars found in honey; forms most of the solid phase in granulated honey.

Diastase = A starch digesting enzyme in honey adversely affected by heat; used in some countries to test quality and heating history of stored honey.

Disease resistance = The ability of an organism to avoid a particular disease; primarily due to genetic immunity or avoidance behavior.

Dividing = Separating a colony to form two or more colonies. AKA a split

Division = Separating a colony to form two or more colonies.

Division board = A wooden or plastic piece like a frame but tight all the way around used to divide one box into more compartments for nucs.

Division board feeder or Frame feeder = A wooden or plastic compartment which is hung in a hive like a frame and contains sugar syrup to feed bees. The original designation (Division) was because it was used to make a division between two halves of a box to divide it into nucs, usually for queen rearing or making increase (splits). Most of what is sold under this name have a beespace around them now and cannot be used to make a division.

Domestic = Bees that live in a manmade hive. Since all bees are pretty much wild this is a relative term.

Doolittle method = A method of queen rearing that involves grafting young larvae into queen cups. Named after G.M. Doolittle who published the method in the late 1800s. The concept was first published in Die Rechte Bienen Kunst by Nicol Jacobis published in 1568.

Dorsal-Ventral Abdominal Vibrations dance = A dance used to recruit forages. Also used on queen cells about to emerge and possibly other times.

Double screen = A wooden frame, 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick, with two layers of wire screen to separate two colonies within the same hive, one above the other. An entrance is cut on the upper side and placed to the rear of the hive for the upper colony

Double story or Double deeps = Referring to a beehive wintering in two deep boxes.

Double wide = A box that is twice as wide as a ten frame box. 32 1/2" wide.

Drawn combs = Full depth comb ready for brood or nectar with the cell walls drawn out by the bees, completing the comb as opposed to foundation that has not been worked by the bees and has no cell walls yet.

Drifting = The movement of bees that have lost their location and enter hives other than their own home. This happens often when hives are placed in long straight rows where returning foragers from the center hives tend to drift to the row ends or when making splits and the field bees drift back to the original hive

Drone = The male honeybee which comes from an unfertilized egg (and is therefore haploid) laid by a queen or less commonly, a laying worker.

Drone comb = Comb that is made up of cells larger than worker brood, usually in the range of 5.9 to 7.0mm in which drones are reared and honey and pollen are stored.

Drone brood = Brood, which matures into drones, reared in cells larger than worker brood. It is noticeably larger than worker brood and the cappings are distinctly dome shaped.

Drone Congregation Area = A place that drones from many surrounding hives congregate and wait for a queen to come. In other words a mating area. Drones find them by following both pheromone trials and topographical features of the landscape such as tree rows.

Drone layers = A drone laying queen (one with no sperm left to fertilize eggs) or laying workers.

Drone laying queen = A queen that can lay only unfertilized eggs, due to age, improper or late mating, disease or injury.

Drone mother hive = The hive which is encouraged to raise a lot of drones to improve the drone side of mating queens.

Drumming = Tapping or thumping on the sides of a hive to make the bees ascend into another hive placed over it or to drive them out of a tree or house. This will not get all of them out, but will move a significant number.

Dwindling = Any rapid decline in the population of the hive. The rapid dying off of old bees in the spring; sometimes called spring dwindling or disappearing disease.

Dysentery = A condition of adult bees characterized by severe diarrhea (as evidenced by brown or yellow streaks on the front of the hive) and usually caused by long confinement (from either cold or beekeeper manipulation), starvation, low-quality food, or nosema infection.
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