Honey Bee Vocabulary!
You’re obviously interested in learning more about honey bees so let’s get you started on the right foot! Raise your hand if you’ve ever started the path of learning something new and quickly became lost in new terminology? 👋🏼 Hi, yes that’s me!
Here’s a quick list of beekeeping vocab:
Colony- Refers to the grouping of honey bees living together in one particular place.
Hive- That one particular place where the colony lives. This ‘technically’ refers to a man made structure for the purpose of keeping bees, but most people use it to describe natural nests as well. Examples are: the eave of your house, compost bin, owl box, water meter box, Langstroth hive, top bar hive, etc.
Swarm- The reproduction of a colony. A swarm is basically a baby bee colony!
Superorganism- Term dedicated to an organized society (in this case of insects) with multiple generations that work synergistically together for the greater good of the whole. Think of it like each individual bee is an individual cell of a body, and the “body” is the colony as one complete organism.
Queen - The mother of the colony and the only mated fertile bee in the colony.
Drone - Male bee. Technically has no father… more on that later!
Worker- Female bee. Makes up the majority of the population of a colony.
Field bee/Forager bee- A class of the female worker bee.
Langstroth- Square vertically stacking hive developed in 1851 by Reverend L.L. Langstroth
Top Bar- Horizontal hive known for saving a beekeepers back and minimally disturbing the colony during inspections.
Brood- Refers to the early stages of a bees lifecycle; egg, larva, pupae.
Capped Brood- Pupal stage of the honey bee life cycle. At the end of the larval stage the cell is capped with a thin wax coating, while the honey bee goes through its pupal stage, and emerges as an adult honey bee. “Capped brood” refers to this pupal stage.
Brood nest- The area of the hive where eggs are laid by the queen and bees are going through the early stages of development.