Beekeeping Glossary

A

• Adding the Honey Super As soon as the cherry blossoms and the nectar flow begins, the colony gets its honey super.
• Apiary Inspection The winter walk-through of the apiary, without opening a colony.

B

• Bottling Honey Bottling is done into hygienically clean jars, in clean work clothes, and over a calibrated scale.

C

• Casting Foundation Anyone processing their own wax casts foundation in a mold.
• Catching a Swarm If the swarm is hanging within easy reach, a well-aimed knock against the branch is usually enough to get most of it into the swarm box.
• Checking Food Stores The most common avoidable loss is starvation in late winter.
• Checking for a Queen Only one finding is certain: an egg standing upright on the cell floor.
• Checking the Water Source During the season, a colony collects water to mix brood food and to cool the brood nest.
• Cleaning Hives Hives and frames from dead or diseased colonies must not be reused without cleaning.
• Combined Brood Nucleus From several strong, healthy colonies, one predominantly capped brood comb is taken from each and combined with at least two food combs into a new colony.
• Counting Varroa Infestation The natural mite drop on the varroa board is the simplest way to estimate a colony's infestation.
• Cutting Out Drone Brood The capped drone frame is removed and the drone brood cut out.

D

• Debris Diagnosis The varroa board under the screened bottom board tells you what is going on in the colony without lifting the cover.
• Disease Check A checking look at the brood nest is part of every inspection.

E

• Emergency Feeding When a colony gets light in late winter, every hour counts.
• Extracting Honey Uncapping is done with an uncapping fork or a warmed knife, guided flat over the comb so the cell walls do not break out.

F

• Feeding for Winter After the last harvest, every colony gets its winter stores.
• Final Mite Treatment The last varroa treatment of the year only works in a broodless colony, since oxalic acid does not penetrate capped cells.
• First Formic Acid Treatment The first summer treatment follows directly after the last honey harvest.
• First Spring Inspection The hive is not opened until the cleansing flight has taken place.
• Fitting Woodpecker Protection In winter, woodpeckers search hives for food and peck their way through the wall.
• Forming a Nucleus Colony The nucleus colony is young-colony production and swarm prevention in one.
• Forming an Artificial Swarm The artificial swarm is a swarm produced by hand: bees are shaken off, put into a box with a queen, and later hived onto foundation.

G

• Giving Fondant Fondant contains only about 10 percent water, whereas feeding syrup contains about 27.5 percent.
• Grafting Queens In grafting, a youngest female larva is transferred with a grafting tool from a worker cell into a queen cup.

H

• Harvesting the Spring Flow Harvesting is done when the honey is ripe, not by the calendar.
• Harvesting the Summer Flow The last harvest of the year. Here too: only harvest ripe honey, meaning predominantly capped combs and a water content under 18 percent, as the German Beekeepers' Association requires for Real German Honey.

I

• Inserting the Bee Escape The bee escape is a one-way passage in the divider board.
• Inserting the Drone Frame An empty frame at the edge of the brood nest gives the colony a chance to work off its building urge.
• Inserting the Queen Excluder The queen excluder sits between the top brood box and the honey super.

K

• Keeping the Colony Register Under German veterinary medicines law, bees count as food-producing animals.

M

• Marking the Queen Marking is done with a solvent-free marker pen or with a glued-on opalith disc on the thorax.
• Mating Nucs An unmated queen needs a small colony from which she can start her mating flight.
• Measuring Water Content Measurement is done with a handheld refractometer.
• Melting Down Wax Old combs are melted down in a steam wax melter, a solar wax melter, or a hot water bath.

O

• Observing the Entrance The shortest and most honest check in the beekeeping year: standing in front of the hive for a few minutes and watching, without opening anything.

P

• Powdered Sugar Test The varroa board shows the mite drop, the bee sample shows the infestation level.
• Preparing for Migration Anyone moving colonies to another location needs, in Germany, an official veterinary health certificate under the Bee Disease Ordinance.

R

• Reading the Scale Hive A hive scale under a colony replaces many looks into the hive.
• Reducing Hive Space Before winter, every colony gets exactly as much space as it can occupy.
• Reducing the Entrance Toward autumn, the entrance is reduced to a few centimeters.
• Registering Colonies Anyone wanting to keep bees must notify the responsible authority at the latest when starting the activity, stating the number of colonies and their location.
• Removing Old Combs Combs are consumable material. With every brood cycle, cocoon residue is left behind, the cells become narrower, and residues and disease pathogens accumulate in the wax.
• Removing the Entrance Wedge When the colonies are flying strongly again in spring and the brood nest is growing, the winter restriction is opened up.
• Repairs at the Apiary The broodless period is the workshop season of beekeeping.
• Requeening A queen is replaced once she is past her second productive year, if the colony is underperforming, if it is unpleasant to work, or if it is noticeably disease-prone.

S

• Second Formic Acid Treatment The second treatment does not follow a fixed calendar interval but the feeding schedule: it follows once the winter feed is in the colony, usually in early to mid-September.
• Stirring Honey Stirring is done so the honey crystallizes fine and spreadable instead of coarse and hard.
• Storing Combs Combs are stored cool and well ventilated, ideally under 10 degrees Celsius for brood combs and food combs.
• Swarm Control From cherry blossom until into June, every colony is checked weekly for queen cells; nine days is the outer limit between checks.

T

• Total Brood Removal All the brood is taken from the colony, ideally about two weeks before the nectar flow ends.
• Trap Comb Method The queen is confined in a comb cage whose side faces are made of queen excluder.

U

• Uniting Colonies A colony that does not reach sufficient strength by late summer rarely survives the winter.

W

• Weighing Colonies Instead of estimating the food stores, they can be calculated.
• Wiring In Foundation Frames are strung with wire and foundation is fixed onto it, so the bees build straight, load-bearing comb and the combs later survive extraction.