Glossary

Apiculture/Apicultural: Beekeeping on a commercial scale such as with farming and agriculture.

Apis mellifera: The scientific term for the European Honey bee.

Attendant bees: The bees that take care of the queen as she cannot take care of herself.

Backyard beekeepers: Small-scale beekeepers that give away honey and wax or sell it.

Brood: The collection of bee eggs, pupa, and larvae in a colony.

Colony: The collection of individual bees in a beehive.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD): Disease affecting honey bees causing their disappearance.

Commercial beekeepers: Beekeepers that use beekeeping as a career.

Drone Bee: The male bees of the colony. Their sole purpose is to mate with the queen.

Genetically Modified Plants (GMO): Plants that have been changed on a genetic level to produce certain results, such as pest resistant corn.

Hive: A single collection of frames, boxes, and colony of bees.

Migratory Beekeeping: The process of moving bees from field to field and/or state to state for the purposes of pollination.

Monoculture Farming: The practice of farming a large area of land with a single crop, such as with almonds in California.

Neonicotinoids: Insecticides that disable the nervous system of insects resulting in paralysis and death.

Nosema: A disease of the honey bees’ digestive track.

Nucs: A set of five frames in a box containing honey, brood, a queen, worker bees, and drones used to start a new colony.

Pollinators: The collection of insects and animals that contribute to the pollination of plants, including food plants. Pollinators include honey bees, birds, and butterflies.

Package: A box of worker and drone bees that may contain a queen used to start a new colony.

Pollination Contract: The contract between a farmer and beekeeper that dictates the terms of when crops will be pollinated and for how much money.

Queen Bee: The one fertilized female bee in the colony. Her only purpose is to lay eggs in the hive.

Robbing: When insects or other honey bees steal honey from weak hive.

Varroa (Varroa jacobsoni): A parasitic mite that infests bees in all stages of the bee’s life destroying their ability to function. This parasite is also known as Varroa Destructor.

Worker Bee: The sterile, female bees of the colony. They take care of the queen, drones, and other duties of the colony such as foraging for pollen, keeping the hive clean, and making honey.