https://bushfarms.com/beesterms.htmI recommend saving the above link if you want to find these again.
E
Eight frame = Boxes that were made to take eight frames. Usually between 13 3/4" and 14" wide depending on the manufacturer.
Eggs = The first phase in the bee life cycle, usually laid by the queen, is the cylindrical egg 1/16in (1.6 mm) long; it is enclosed with a flexible shell or chorion. It resembles a small grain of rice.
Eke = The term originated with skeps and it was "an enlargement" which is the equivalent of today's super. In current usage it usually refers to a shim that is either added to the top for feeding things like pollen patties or added under a shallow to make it into a deep. The term is used more frequently in Britain.
Electric embedder = A device allowing rapid embedding of wires in foundation with electrically produced heat
End bar = The piece of a frame that is on the ends of the frame. In other words the vertical pieces of the frame.
Entrance reducer = A wooden strip used to regulate the size of the entrance.
Escape board = A board having one or more bee escapes in it used to remove bees from supers.
European Foulbrood
Ether wash = Putting a cupful of bees in a jar with a spray of starter fluid to kill the bees and mites so you can count the Varroa mites. A sugar roll is a non-lethal and much less flammable method of doing the same.
European Honey Bees = Bees from Europe as opposed to bees originating in Africa or other parts of the world or bees crossbred with those from Africa.
Eyelets = A small metal piece fitting into the wire-holes of a frame's end bar; used to keep the reinforcing wires from cutting into the wood.
Extra shallow = A box that is 4 11/16 or 4 3/4" deep. Usually used for cut comb. Sometimes modified for sections.
Extracted honey = Honey removed from combs usually by means of a centrifugal force (an extractor) in order to leave the combs intact.
Ezi Queen = A particular brand of graftless queen rearing system.
F
Frame feeder or Division board 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 them have a beespace around them now and cannot be used to make a division.
Feeders
Fermenting honey = Honey which contains too much water (greater than 20%) in which yeast has grown and caused it to turn into carbon dioxide, water and alcohol.
Feral (queen or bees) = Since all North American bees are considered to have come from domestic stock, what most people call "wild" bees are really "feral" bees. Some use the term for survivor bees that were captured and used to raise queens meaning they WERE feral as opposed to ARE feral.
Fertile queen = An inseminated queen.
Fertilized = Usually refers to eggs laid by a queen bee, they are fertilized with sperm stored in the queen's spermatheca, in the process of being laid. These develop into workers or queens.
Festooning = The activity of young bees, engorged with honey, hanging on to each other usually to secrete beeswax but also in bearding and swarming..
Field bees = Worker bees which are usually 21 or more days old and work outside to collect nectar, pollen, water and propolis; also called foragers.
Flash heater = A device for heating honey very rapidly to prevent it from being damaged by sustained periods of high temperature
Flight path = Usually refers to the direction bees fly leaving their colony; if obstructed, may cause bees to accidentally collide with the person obstructing and eventually become aggravated.
Floor Without a Floor AKA FWOF = 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.
Follower board = A thin board used in place of a frame usually when there are fewer than the normal number of frames in a hive. This is usually referring to one that has a beespace around it and is used to make the frames easier to remove without rolling and to cut down on condensation on the walls. Sometimes it's used to refer to a board that is bee tight and used to divide a box into two colonies. When designed and used in this manner it should be called a division board.
Food chamber = A hive body filled with honey for winter stores. Typically a third deep used in unlimited brood nest management.
Forage = Natural food source of bees (nectar and pollen) from wild and cultivated flowers. Or the act of gathering that food.
Foragers = Worker bees which are usually 21 or more days old and work outside to collect nectar, pollen, water and propolis; also called field bees.
Foundation = Thin sheets of beeswax embossed or stamped with the base of a worker (or rarely drone) cells on which bees will construct a complete comb (called drawn comb); also referred to as comb foundation, it comes wired or unwired and also in plastic as well as one piece foundations and frames as well as different thicknesses (thin surplus, surplus, medium) and different cell sizes (brood =5.4mm, small cell = 4.9mm, drone=6.6mm).
Foundationless = A frame with some kind of comb guide that is used without foundation.
Frame = A rectangular structure of wood designed to hold honey comb, consisting of a top bar, two end bars, and a bottom bar; usually spaced a bee-space apart in the super.
Frame feeder
Fructose = Fruit sugar, also called levulose (left handed sugar), a monosaccharide commonly found in honey that is slow to granulate
Fumagilin-B = Bicyclohexyl-ammonium fumagillin, whose trade name was Fumadil-B (Abbot Labs) but now seems to be called Fumagillin-B, is a whitish soluble antibiotic powder discovered in 1952; some beekeepers mix this with sugar syrup and feed it to bees to control Nosema disease. Fumagillin is more soluble than Fumadil. Its use in beekeeping is outlawed in the European Union because it is a suspected teratogen (causes birth defects). Fumagillin can block blood vessel formation by binding to an enzyme called methionine aminopeptidase. Targeted gene disruption of methionine aminopeptidase 2 results in an embryonic gastrulation defect and endothelial cell growth arrest. It is made from the fungus that causes stonebrood, Aspergillus fumigatus. Formula: (2E,4E,6E,8E)-10-{[(3S,4S,5S,6R)- 5-methoxy-4-[2-methyl-3-(3-methylbut-2-enyl) oxiran-2-yl]-1-oxaspiro[2.5]octan-6-yl]oxy}- 10-oxo-deca-2,4,6,8-tetraenoic acid
Fumadil-B = The old trade name for Fumagillin, Bicyclohexyl-ammonium fumagillin, is a whitish soluble antibiotic powder discovered in 1952; some beekeepers mix this with sugar syrup and fed to bees to control Nosema disease. Its use in beekeeping is outlawed in the European Union because it is a suspected teratogen (causes birth defects). Fumagillin can block blood vessel formation by binding to an enzyme called methionine aminopeptidase. Targeted gene disruption of methionine aminopeptidase 2 results in an embryonic gastrulation defect and endothelial cell growth arrest. Fumadil is made from the fungus that causes stonebrood, Aspergillus fumigatus.
Fume board = A device used to hold a set amount of a volatile chemical (A bee repellent like Bee Go or Honey Robber or Bee Quick) to drive bees from supers.
G
Gloves = Leather, cloth or rubber gloves worn while inspecting bees.
Glucose = Also known as dextrose, 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.
Grafting = Removing a worker larva from its cell and placing it in an artificial queen cup in order to have it reared into a queen.
Grafting tool = A needle or probe used for transferring larvae in grafting of queen cells
Granulate = The process by which honey, a super-saturated solution (more solids than liquid) will become solid or crystallize; speed of granulation depends of the kinds of sugars in the honey, the crystal seeds (such as pollen or sugar crystals) and the temperature. Optimum temperature for granulation is 57? F (14? C ).
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.
Gum = A hollow log beehive, sometimes called a log-gum, made by cutting out that portion of a tree containing bees and moving it to the apiary, or by cutting a hollow portion of a log, putting a board on for a lid and hiving a swarm in it. Since it contains no moveable combs, and since every state in the US has laws that require movable combs, it is therefore illegal.
H
Hair clip queen catcher = A device used to catch a queen that resembles a hair clip. Available from most beekeeping supply houses.
Hemolymph = The scientific name for insect "blood."
Hive = A home for a colony of bees.
Hive body = A wooden box containing frames. Usually referring to the size of box being used for brood.
Hive stand = A structure serving as a base support for a beehive; it helps in extending the life of the bottom board by keeping it off damp ground. Hive stands may be built from treated lumber, cedar, bricks, concrete blocks etc.
Hive staples = Large C-shaped metal nails, hammered into the wooden hive parts to secure bottom to supers, and supers to super before moving a colony.
Hive tool = A flat metal device with a curved scraping surface or a lifting hook at one end and a flat blade at the other; used to open hives, pry apart and scrape frames.
Hoffman frame = Frames that have the end bars wider at the top than the bottom to provide the proper spacing when frames are placed in the hive.
Honey = A sweet viscid material produced by bees from the nectar of flowers, composed largely of a mixture of dextrose and levulose dissolved in about 17 percent water; contains small amounts of sucrose, mineral matter, vitamins, proteins, and enzymes.
Honey bound = A condition where the brood nest of a hive is being backfilled with honey. This is a normal condition that is used by the workers to shut down the queen's brood production. It usually happens just before swarming and in the fall to prepare for winter.
Honeydew = An excreted material from insects in the order Homoptera (aphids) which feed on plant sap; since it contains almost 90% sugar, it is collected by bees and stored as honeydew honey.
Honey bee = The common name for Apis mellifera.
Honey Bee Healthy = A mixture of essential oils (lemon grass and peppermint) sold to boost the immune system of the bees.
Honey crop = The honey that was harvested.
Honey crop also called honey stomach or honey sac = An enlargement at the posterior of a bees' esophagus but lying in the front part of the abdomen, capable of expanding when full of liquid such as nectar or water.
Honey extractor = A machine which removes honey from the cells of comb by centrifugal force.
Honey flow = A time when enough nectar-bearing plants are blooming such that bees can store a surplus of honey.
Honey gate = A faucet used for removing honey from tanks and other storage receptacles.
Honey house = A building used for activities such as honey extraction, packaging and storage.
Honey plants = Plants whose flower (or other parts) yields enough nectar to produce a surplus of honey; examples are asters, basswood, citrus, eucalyptus, goldenrod and tupelo.
Honey Super Cell = Fully drawn plastic comb in deep depth and 4.9mm cell size
Honey supers = Refers to boxes of frames used for honey production. From the Latin "super" for above as a designation for any box above the brood nest.
Hopkins method = A graftless method of queen rearing that involves putting a frame of young larvae horizontally above a brood nest.
Hopkins shim = A shim used to turn a frame flatways for queen rearing without grafting.
Horizontal hive = a hive that is laid out horizontally instead of vertically in order to eliminate lifting boxes.
Hornets and Yellow Jackets = Social insects belonging to the family Vespidae. Nest in paper or foliage material, with only an overwintering queen. Fairly aggressive, and carnivorous, but generally beneficial, they can be a nuisance to man. Hornets and Yellow Jackets are often confused with Wasps and Honey Bees. Wasps are related to Hornets and Yellow Jackets, the most common of which are the paper wasps which nest in small exposed paper combs, suspended by a single support. Hornets, Yellow Jackets and Wasps are easy to distinguish by their shiny hairless body, and aggressiveness. Honey Bees are generally fuzzy brown or tan, and basically docile in nature.
Hot (temperament) = Bees that are overly defensive or outright aggressive.
Housel positioning theory = A theory proposed by Michael Housel that natural brood nests have a predictable orientation of the "Y" in the bottom of the cells. Basically that when looking at one side an upside down "Y" will appear in the bottom and from the other side a right side up "Y" will appear and the center comb will have a sideways "Y" that is the same from both sides. Basically if we assume a third bar in my notation to make these "Y"s and assume a nine frame hive and each pair is what the comb looks like from that side: ^v ^v ^v ^v >> v^ v^ v^ v^
Hydroxymethyl furfural = A naturally occurring compound in honey that rises over time and rises when honey is heated.
Hypopharyngeal gland = A gland located in the head of a worker bee that secretes "royal jelly". This rich blend of proteins and vitamins is fed to all bee larvae for the first three days of their lives and queens during their entire development.
I
Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus aka IAPV = The virus currently being blamed for CCD. First discovered in Israel where it was quite devastating to colonies.
Illinois = A box that is 6 5/8" in depth and the frames are 6 1/4" in depth. AKA Medium AKA Western AKA 3/4 depth.
Imirie shim = A device credited to the late George Imirie that is a 3/4" shim with an entrance built in. It allows you to add an entrance between any two pieces of equipment on the hive.
Imkerpfeife = A small smoking pipe designed for a beekeeper where you cannot inhale but only exhale the smoke allowing you to blow it in a specific location. The beekeeper often has a hole in the veil for the stem. Popular in Germanic countries.
Includer = A queen excluder put between the queen and the exit (with a bottom entrance that means on the bottom board) to keep the queen from leaving. This should only be done for a short time as it will clog up with dead drones.
Increase = To add to the number of colonies, usually by dividing those on hand. See Split.
Infertile = Incapable of producing a fertilized egg, as a laying worker or drone laying queen. Unfertilized eggs develop into drones.
Inhibine = Antibacterial effect of honey caused by enzymes and an accumulation of hydrogen peroxide, a result of the chemistry of honey.
Inner cover = An insulating cover fitting on top of the top super but underneath the outer cover, with an oblong hole in the center. Used to be called a "quilt board". In the old days these were often made of cloth.
Instar = Stages of larval development. A Honey Bee goes through five instars. The best queens are grafted in the 1st (preferably) or 2nd instar and not later than that.
Instrumental insemination aka II or AI = The introduction of drone spermatozoa into the spermatheca of a virgin queen by means of special instruments
Invertase = An enzyme in honey, which splits the sucrose molecule (a disaccharide) into its two components dextrose and levulose (monosaccharides). This is produced by the bees and put into the nectar to convert it in the process of making honey.
Isomerase = A bacterial enzyme used to convert glucose in corn syrup into fructose, which is a sweeter sugar; called isomerose, is now used as a bee feed.
Italian bees = A common race of bees, Apis mellifera ligustica, with brown and yellow bands, from Italy; usually gentle and productive, but tend to rob.
J
Jenter = A particular brand of graftless queen rearing system.
K
Kashmir Bee Virus = A widespread disease of bees, spread more quickly by Varroa, found everywhere there are bees.
Kenya Top Bar Hive = A top bar hive with sloped sides. The theory is that they will have less attachments on the sides because of the slope.
Kidneys = Bees don't actually have kidneys. They have malpighian tubules which are thin filamentous projects from the junction of the mid and hind gut of the bee that cleanse the hemolymph (blood) of nitrogenous cell wastes and deposit them as non-toxic uric acid crystals into the undigestible food wastes for elimination. They serve the same purpose in bees as kidneys do in higher animals.
L
Landing board = A small platform at the entrance of the hive for the bees to land on before entering the hive.
Lang = Short for Langstroth hive.
Langstroth, Rev. L.L. = A Philadelphia native and minister (1810-95), he lived for a time in Ohio where he continued his studies and writing of bees; recognized the importance of the bee space, resulting in the development of the movable-frame hive.
Langstroth hive = The basic hive design of L.L. Langstroth. In modern terms any hive that takes frames that have a 19" top bar and fit into a box 19 7/8" long. Widths vary from five frame nucs to eight frame boxes to ten frame boxes and from Dadant deeps, Langstroth deeps, Mediums, Shallows and Extra Shallow. But all would still be Langstroths. This would distinguish them from WBC, Smith, National DE etc.
Large Cell = Standard foundation size = 5.4mm cell size
Larva, open = The second developmental stage of a bee, starting the 4th day from when the egg is laid until it's capped on about the 9th or 10th day.
Larva, capped = The second developmental stage of a bee, ready to pupate or spin its cocoon (about the 10th day from the egg).
Laying workers = Worker bees which lay eggs in a colony hopelessly queenless; such eggs are infertile, since the workers cannot mate, and therefore become drones.
Leg baskets = Also called pollen baskets, a flattened depression surrounded by curved spines located on the outside of the tibiae of the bees' hind legs and adapted for carrying flower pollen and propolis.
Lemon Grass essential oil = Essential oil used for swarm lure. Lemongrass oil contains all of the compounds known to affect the behavior of the bees and all but one of the compounds of Nasonov pheromone.
Lemongrass oil major components:
geraniol (isomer of nerol)
nerolic acid (isomer of geranic acid)
(E)-citral (geranial)
(Z)-citral (neral)
geranic acid (isomer of nerolic acid)
farnesol
Levulose = Also called fructose (fruit sugar), a monosaccharide commonly found in honey that is slow to granulate.
Long hive = a hive that is laid out horizontally instead of vertically.
M
Malpighian tubules = Thin filamentous projects from the junction of the mid and hind gut of the bee that cleanse the hemolymph of nitrogenous cell wastes and deposit them as non-toxic uric acid crystals into the undigestible food wastes for elimination. They serve the same purpose as kidneys in higher animals.
Mandibles = The jaws of an insect; used by bees to form the honey comb and scrape pollen, in fighting and picking up hive debris.
Marking = Painting a small dot of enamel on the back of the thorax of a queen to make her easier to identify and so you can tell if she has been superseded.
Marking pen = An enamel pen used to mark queens. Available at local hardware stores as enamel pens. Also from beekeeping supply houses as Queen marking pens.
Marking Tube = A plastic tube commonly available from beekeeping supply houses that is used to safely confine a queen while you mark her.
Mating flight = The flight taken by a virgin queen while she mates in the air with several drones.
Mating nuc = A small nuc for the purpose of getting queens mated used in queen rearing. These vary from two frames of the standard size used by that beekeeper for brood, to the mini-mating nucs sold for that purpose with smaller than normal frames.
Maxant = A beekeeping equipment manufacturer that makes uncappers, extractors, hive tools etc.
Medium = A box that is 6 5/8" in depth and the frames are 6 1/4" in depth. AKA Illinois AKA Western AKA 3/4 depth.
Medium brood (foundation) = When used to refer to foundation, medium refers to the thickness of the wax NOT the depth of the frame. In this case it's medium thick and of worker sized cells.
Melissococcus pluton = New name for the bacterium that causes European Foulbrood. The old name was Streptococcus pluton.
Midnite = An F1 hybrid cross of two specific lines of Caucasians and Carniolans. Originated by Dadant and Sons and sold for years by York.
Migratory beekeeping = The moving of colonies of bees from one locality to another during a single season to take advantage of two or more honey flows or for pollination.
Migratory cover = An outer cover used without an inner cover that does not telescope over the sides of the hive; used by commercial beekeepers who frequently move hives. This allows hives to be packed tightly against one another because the cover does not protrude over the sides.
Miller Bee Supply = A beekeeping supply company out of North Carolina. They have eight frame equipment.
Miller feeder
Miller Method = A graftless method of queen rearing that involves a ragged edge on some brood comb for the bees to build queen cells on.
Moisture content = In honey, the percentage of water should be no more than 18.6; any percentage higher than that will allow honey to ferment.
Mouse guard = A device to reduce the entrance to a hive so that mice cannot enter. Commonly #4 hardware cloth.
Movable combs = Combs that are built in a hive that allows them to be manipulated and inspected. Top bar hives have movable combs but not frames. Langstroth hives have movable combs IN frames.
Movable frames = A frame constructed in such a way to preserve the bee space, so they can be easily removed; when in place, it remains unattached to its surroundings.
N
Nadiring = Adding boxes below the brood nest. This is a common practice with foundationless including Warre? hives.
Nasonov = A pheromone used given off by a gland under the tip of the abdomen of workers that serves primarily as an orientation pheromone. It is essential to swarming behavior and nasonoving is set off by disturbance of the colony. It is a mixture of seven terpenoids, the majority of which is Geranial and Neral, which are a pair of isomers usually mixed and called citral. Lemongrass (Cymbopogon) essential oil is mostly these scents and is useful in bait hives and to get newly hived bees or swarms to stay in a hive.
The constituents of Nasonov pheromone:
geraniol (isomer of nerol)
nerolic acid (isomer of geranic acid)
(E)-citral (geranial)
(Z)-citral (neral)
geranic acid (isomer of nerolic acid)
Nerol (isomer of geraniol)
farnesol
The essential constituents of Nasonov for effects on bees:
"A 1:1:1 mixture of geraniol + nerolic acid + (E)- and (Z)-citrals was as effective as a mixture of all the seven components in equal proportions"
geraniol (isomer of nerol)
nerolic acid (isomer of geranic acid)
(E)-citral (geranial)
(Z)-citral (neral)
Nasonoving = Bees who have their abdomens extended and are fanning the Nasonov pheromone. The smell is lemony
Natural cell = Cell size that bees have built on their own without foundation.
Natural comb = Comb that bees have built on their own without foundation.
Nectar = A liquid rich in sugars, manufactured by plants and secreted by nectary glands in or near flowers; the raw material for honey.
Nectar flow = A period of time when nectar is available.
Nectar Management aka Checkerboarding = A method of swarm control originated by Walt Wright where the stores above the brood chamber are alternated with drawn comb late in the winter. Reports from those using it are of massive harvests and no swarming.
New World Carniolans = A breeding program originated by Sue Cobey to find and breed bees from the US with Carniolan traits and other commercially useful traits.
Newspaper method = A technique to join together two strange colonies by providing a temporary newspaper barrier.
Nicot = A particular brand of graftless queen rearing system.
Nosema
Nuc, nuclei, nucleus = A small colony of bees often used in queen rearing or the box in which the small colony of bees resides. The term refers to the fact that the essentials, bees, brood, food, a queen or the means to make one, are there for it to grow into a colony, but it is not a full sized colony.
Nurse bees = Young bees, usually three to ten days old, which feed and take care of developing brood.
O
Observation Hive = A hive made largely of glass or clear plastic to permit observation of bees at work
Open-air Nest = A colony that has built its nest in the open limbs of a tree rather than in the hollow of a tree or a hive.
Open Mesh Floor = A bottom board with screen (usually #8 hardware cloth) for the bottom to allow ventilation and to allow Varroa mites to fall through. In the US this is typically called a Screened Bottom Board.
Outer cover = The last cover that fits over a hive to protect it from rain; the two most common kinds are telescoping and migratory covers.
Outyard = Also called out apiary, it is an apiary kept at some distance from the home or main apiary of a beekeeper; usually over a mile away from the home yard.
Ovary = The egg producing part of a plant or animal.
Ovule = An immature female germ cell, which develops into a seed.
Ovariole = Any of several tubules that compose an insect ovary.
Oxytetracycline aka Oxytet = An antibiotic sold under the trade name Terramycin; used to control American and European foulbrood diseases.
Topic: Glossary of Beekeeping Terms Part II (Read 582 times)