Authoritative project documentation

Beekeeping glossary

ApiaryLens uses ordinary beekeeping language and keeps regional variation visible. This glossary explains the words used in records and forms; it is not a substitute for local training, an experienced mentor, or veterinary and regulatory guidance.

Places, colonies, and equipment

Apiary — A place where one or more managed bee colonies are kept. Also called a bee yard.

Hive — The physical home and equipment occupied by a colony. ApiaryLens keeps a hive's identity and history even when boxes or other components change.

Colony — The living bee community: queen, workers, drones when present, brood, and food stores. A colony occupies a hive.

Brood box / deep — A box primarily used for the brood nest. “Deep” describes a common box size; local equipment and management practices vary.

Super — A box generally placed above the brood area for surplus honey storage. Common sizes include shallow and medium.

Queen excluder — A grid placed between boxes that allows workers through while usually restricting the queen. It is commonly used to keep brood out of honey supers.

Frame — A removable structure that supports comb inside a hive box.

Foundation — A sheet or guide in a frame on which bees draw comb. Frames can also be foundationless.

Comb — The beeswax cells used for brood, honey, pollen, and space within the nest.

Bottom board — The floor of a movable-frame hive. It may be solid or screened.

Entrance reducer — A piece that narrows the hive entrance for defense, weather, or management.

Inner cover / outer cover — The covers above the uppermost box. The outer cover protects the hive from weather.

Nuc / nucleus colony — A small established colony, usually supplied on several frames with a queen, brood, workers, and stores.

Package — A quantity of adult bees, usually sold with a caged queen and without established brood comb.

Bees and queen history

Queen — The colony's primary reproductive female. A colony may replace her through supersedure, emergency queen rearing, or swarming.

Worker — A female bee that performs most colony work and normally does not mate.

Drone — A male honey bee whose primary biological role is mating with a queen.

Queenright — A colony believed to have a functioning queen. The queen herself does not have to be seen if other evidence is sufficient.

Queenless — A colony believed to lack a functioning queen.

Marked queen — A queen carrying a paint mark or numbered disc/tag. The international year-color cycle is white for years ending 1/6, yellow 2/7, red 3/8, green 4/9, and blue 5/0.

Supersedure — Colony replacement of a queen, often while the existing queen is still present. This differs from replacing a queen as part of colony reproduction by swarming.

Swarm — A queen and a large group of workers leaving to establish a new colony. “Swarm” can also refer to that group after it leaves.

Absconding — Most or all adult bees abandon the nest rather than dividing through normal reproductive swarming.

Brood and colony observations

Brood — Immature bees: eggs, larvae, and pupae.

Open brood — Eggs and larvae in cells that have not been capped.

Capped brood — Developing pupae beneath wax cappings.

Brood pattern — The distribution and continuity of brood on the comb. Record what you observe rather than treating one pattern as a diagnosis by itself.

Queen cell — A downward-facing enlarged cell in which a queen develops. Context helps distinguish swarm, supersedure, and emergency queen-rearing conditions.

Temperament — Observed colony behavior during an inspection, including calmness, defensiveness, or flightiness. Weather and handling can affect it.

Population strength — An estimate of the adult bee population, commonly based on occupied frames or seams. ApiaryLens preserves the unit or method with the value.

Food, forage, and season

Nectar — Sugar-rich liquid collected from plants and processed into honey.

Honey — Ripened, stored food made by bees primarily from nectar.

Pollen / bee bread — Pollen is collected plant material; bee bread is stored and fermented pollen used as a protein-rich food.

Propolis — Resinous material bees collect and use to seal and coat hive surfaces.

Forage — Plant resources available to bees, especially nectar, pollen, resins, and water.

Nectar flow / honey flow — A period when nectar is sufficiently available for colonies to bring in and potentially store a surplus.

Dearth — A period with little available nectar, often increasing robbing pressure and the importance of monitoring stores.

Robbing — Bees taking stored honey from another colony or exposed equipment.

Feeding — Supplying sugar syrup, dry sugar, fondant, pollen substitute, or another managed feed. Record product, amount, unit, reason, and date.

Health, pests, and care

Varroa / Varroa mite — Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite and major honey-bee health threat. A count is a measurement; interpretation and action thresholds depend on method, season, location, and current guidance.

Alcohol wash / soap wash — A destructive sampling method used to estimate Varroa mites on a measured sample of adult bees.

Sugar roll — A powdered-sugar sampling method used to dislodge and count mites.

Sticky board — A board placed beneath a screened bottom to observe mite fall. Its results are not directly interchangeable with an adult-bee wash.

Treatment — A product or management method used to address a pest or disease. Record dates, dosage, restrictions, and the exact label or professional guidance.

Removal date — The date a treatment or device must be removed. It is distinct from a product's harvest, withdrawal, temperature, or other restrictions.

Follow-up — Work or an observation that should be checked later, with an optional due date and completion state.

ApiaryLens record language

Inspection — A dated observation of a hive or colony. Draft inspections can be saved offline and completed later.

Not synced — The record or photo is safely stored on this device but has not yet been accepted by the connected server.

Synced — The connected server accepted the current record or media version.

Conflict — Both local and server versions changed and require an explicit choice or merge. ApiaryLens does not silently discard either side.

Archived — Hidden from normal active work without deleting its history.

Full export — An owner-controlled archive of records and private media for portability and recovery. A browser's cached offline copy is not a server backup.