Terminology you should know about beekeeping

There are a variety of terms used in beekeeping that I wish someone would have told me when I started. Let’s be real, they probably did, but I couldn’t remember what ALL of the new terms meant! The beginning beekeeping class I took would have been a lot easier to understand if I would’ve had some more background knowledge. I’m going to explain some of the common terminology of beekeeping so you can feel like an expert, even if you’re just starting! 

Beekeeping Terminology Related to Beekeeping Equipment

• Veil -the screen/mesh covering for your face designed to keep bees away from your face
• Suit-the full body covering designed to keep bees off of your body

• Helmet- some suits use a helmet with a veil
• Gloves -beekeeping gloves are often leather gloves of some sort that allow you work with your hands in the hive without being stung
• Bee brush – like a long-bristle paint brush, used to sweep bees away 
• Hive tool -the main tool used to “crack” open a hive, pull frames out of the box, scrape comb, etc.
  • “Crack” -the noise you hear when you physically pry apart beekeeping equipment such as boxes or frames
• Smoker  – tool in which you light a fire, and use the billow to push smoke out to cover the bees. Bees think there is a fire, and they usually retreat a bit and do not spread the pheromone (smell) to other bees to attack
• EpiPen (Epinephrine Pen) – auto injector used to treat a severe asthma attack or severe allergic reaction, including anaphylaxis, in an emergency situation 

Beekeeping Terminology Related to the Bees

• Colony -the group or unit of bees that live together to raise more bees, collect food and wax building. A colony is usually thousands of bees. Most populous are the worker bees (females), then drones (males), followed by the queen (one female with developed reproductive organs). 
• Hive – the place a colony of bees live in. If talking about beekeepers, the hive is usually (and ideally) a man-made structure. 
• Types of bees:
  • Queen -only one per hive. This bee has a longer abdomen that allows her to lay eggs in the bottom of a cell. She has fully developed reproductive organs, whereas other female bees do not. These organs and their function are established around the first few days after developing from an egg.
    • Cell- the individual hexagon shaped formation of wax within the hive
  • Worker – thousands of female bees in the colony that provide many functions: keeping the hive clean, gathering pollen, gathering nectar that eventually gets turned into honey, raising larvae (both drone and worker), warming/cooling the hive, taking care of invaders, and taking care of the queen. Their jobs vary depending on their age. 
  • Drone -about 5% of the total population of the hive. The males of the hive. Their sole job is to mate with the queen. Drones develop from unfertilized eggs, so really any worker bee can make drones, and will if a hive is without a queen, or queenless. 
• Breeds of bees/Subspecies -each breed of bee is known for certain qualities (ie. more gentle, brood production, lessened mite load (we’ll talk about mites later), honey production, etc.)
  • Italian
  • Russian
  • Carniolan
  • Russian
  • Caucasian
  • German
  • Buckfast
• Egg – the small white-ish colored eggs that the queen lays are about the size of 0.5mm pencil lead, and as long as a grain of rice
  • Kicker-worker bees can go rogue and start laying unfertilized eggs, which is not ideal. This is called being a “laying worker,” and is usually the result of a queen less (no queen) hive
• Brood – the expression used to classify the group of larvae that the queen has laid. Can be capped or uncapped
  • Capped means there is a covering over the cell. Made up of wax that protects the developing young (or honey). You can use the term capped as in capped brood (covered baby bee) or capped honey (wax covered honey)
  • Uncapped means that the cell is open to the rest of the hive for feeding or adding nectar to, or dehydrating
• Brood pattern – the typically semi-circle shaped way that a queen lays eggs. Along the outside of the brood are often cells of pollen and capped honey (good)
  • Patchy brood – would refer to the empty spaces in which the queen doesn’t lay eggs (not ideal)
• Larva – days after the eggs are laid they “hatch” into larva
• Nuc – a subdivision of a hive that can contain a queen or caged queen to be released after introduction to a “queenless” hive
• Royal jelly- the food that is fed to larva. Larva eat around in a circular pattern until they turn into a pupa, in which they are capped for final stages of development (like growing fur, getting pigmentation (color), etc.)

Beekeeping Terminology Related to the Hive

Before I begin this section I will say what I have always heard from my mentor. You talk to ten different beekeepers about the way they do things, you’ll get twelve different answers. This is so true! There, unfortunately, isn’t ONE way to do beekeeping, and I think that is why it can be confusing. Your methods will depend on if your bees are staying put for the Iowa winter, and you have -40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, or if they’ll be traveling 2,000 miles away to pollinate fields in California. Even then, different beekeepers have their way of doing things, for their own reasons. I’ll share what equipment we use for our bees in north west Iowa, that stay in Iowa for the winter. 

• Layout of a hive (from bottom to top)
  • Bottom board, two deep boxes, queen excluder (optional), honey super(s), vivaldi board/quilt box (for winter-optional), telescoping inner cover (optional), cover 
• Bottom board – the board that the hive sits on. It will often have a landing space for the bees to get in and out of the hive (think of a runway for airplanes)
• Brood box or deep box – usually two boxes that contain ten frames each, that contain the brood
• Queen excluder- this optional piece of equipment does sometimes come in handy when making splits (I’ll talk about what a split is in Part 2), or if you for sure want to keep the queen out of your honey supers. It can be metal or plastic. We opted for metal for longer use. You will place this piece between the boxes in order to keep the queen from moving up to a higher box
  • Fun fact-if they get a ton of wax buildup on them, set them in a freezer for about 24 hours, take them outside and bang it on the ground. The wax will mostly shatter and fall off!
• Honey super or super –  the box that the bees will store their excess honey. These are the boxes that beekeepers will harvest yummy honey from to get to your bellies. These boxes are added on top of the two brood boxes. So, if putting it together from the bottom it’ll go – bottom board, two deep boxes, queen excluder (optional) then honey super. You add more supers when your bees have drawn out wax on most of the frames and are running out of space to store honey. 
• Frame – each box in the hive contains frames in which the bees raise baby bees (brood) or store honey. Think of this like a picture frame. Inside of a frame, a piece of foundation fits in to give the bees a head start on their jobs.
  • Each deep brood box contains ten frames
  • Each honey super will contain nine frames. You will want to leave the extra space for the bees to draw out wax to fill with honey. Also, these boxes get REALLY heavy (40-80 lbs) full of honey
    • You may choose to use spacers. These often metal fittings sit inside of the ridge of a honey super, under the frames, and are nailed in place, so you have precise spacing between frames. This, in my opinion, is an optional piece of equipment, but does make placing supers more speedy. 
• Foundation – the wax, and sometimes wax and wire piece, that fits inside of a frame that the bees will draw out more wax to create cells on to house brood or honey. This often comes in yellow or black. I like black because they don’t look dirty, and don’t show wear as much, and because I can see the cream-colored eggs on it. I also think black looks sharp. 
• Vivaldi board – an optional piece of equipment used to help pull moisture off and away from the hive, usually in winter time, to keep them from freezing and/or overheating. We line ours with burlap to wick up moisture. This goes directly on top of the top brood box. 
• Telescoping Inner cover – or Inner Cover – the cover that is put directly on the inside of the top of a hive, under the top cover (in my opinion, not necessary)
• Top cover – the very outermost cover that protects that hive from the outside elements that goes on the top of your hive. 
• Winter cover – the optional piece of tar paper or corrugated plastic used as a windbreak to put directly over a hive in the colder, winter months
• Mouse guard – a guard used to protect the hive against mice in the colder months and winter. If a mouse gets into the hive in the winter it will wreak havoc by eating through wax, etc. The bees may be able to fight it off, but not guaranteed, depending on how large the hive is and can break cluster. ¼ in hardware cloth also works for this.
  • Cluster – when the bees get together in a group to conserve heat in the winter time
• Entrance reducer – a piece of equipment used to close off part of the entrance in order to stop robbers (see the Beekeeping Terminology Related to Bee Behavior section for details on robbing-Part 2), or to conserve heat in the wintertime 
• Upper hive entrance – an entrance above the brood boxes that gives bees another access point besides the front hive entrance
• Hive stand – the thing that the hive sits on. Sometimes it is a physical stand, and other times it’s a pallet with a piece of plywood for the bottom, or bottom board 
• Migratory pallet – the pallet that beekeepers use to ship beehives on. It usually contains space for four hives that contains U-clips that fits on the outside, and inside of the bottom brood box to prevent them from sliding off of the pallet
• Observation hive – a hive that has glass so viewers can get a look into the beehive without fear of being stung

Great job! You’ve made it to the end of Part 1! I hope this gives you a bit of background information that you can use to visualize how your hive will be structured. Come back for Part 2, where I’ll discuss more terminology used in beekeeping, including honey production, diseases, pests, and more. Please comment on what you are looking forward to learning about beekeeping! I have posted many beekeeping videos and photos on my school garden Facebook page, check them out here. Subscribe to the Iowa Family Gardening Homestead for updates, and to tag along on this journey. Try something new, I’m cheering you on!