Beekeeping, Beeboxes & Plastic Frames Poly hives and plastic beekeeping frames

Q

Queen(Q) bee: usually only one in a colony, mates, lays eggs, dissipates pheromones, dies.

Queen cell (QC): A protuberance on the comb or edge of a frame that initially contains an egg. It is shaped like an acorn cup, maturing to look like a peanut or thimble. The queen larva pupates inside. Before it is sealed, it is known as an open QC. Once the QC is sealed, it is called a closed QC. It may be referred to by what sort of QC it is, e.g. supersedure cell.

Queenless Movement Behaviour — bees perform runs when the colony is queenless.

Queen cage: a small (plastic or wood) container with perforations in its walls used to store, transport, and introduce a Q into a queenless colony.

QE / QX, queen excluder: A sheet of plastic or metal with slots 4.3 mm wide. Worker bees can get through, but drones and the queen are too large.

QMP: Queen mandibular pheromone / mandibular substance: well known to beekeepers because of its influence on swarming.

Queen cup/play cup (PC): little cups prepared for swarming or supersedure. In the active season, a few are always present and have no significance. If a colony produces a lot, it is prone to swarm, “a swarmy colony”.

Queenright: The colony has a queen (Q).

Queenless — no Q.

Queen Trap: a manipulation board that traps the Q and QC when the colony is making swarm preparations. It has a front upper entrance and a central area of QE.

R

Robbing: bees enter another hive and steal its honey.

Runners: (i) queen or bees that don't stay still on the comb. (ii) A rail on which the lugs of a frame rest. (iii) Humans that like running.

S

Sealed brood: brood that has been capped so that the larvae can pupate.

Severe localised reaction: The body reacts strongly to a sting, so the swelling exceeds 10 cm in diameter. Some people erroneously refer to this as an allergic reaction.

Skep: a basket woven out of straw traditionally used to retrieve swarms. In the past, they were used to keep bees. But the nest had to be destroyed to harvest the honey.

Snelgrove board: a manipulation board with a 100 × 100 mm2 mesh in the middle of a square bit of ply. It has eight doors, four on each side. Bees can be drained from top to bottom colony, etc.

Split: a manipulation where the queen and some bees are moved away from their home site.

Splitting the brood: An empty frame is put inside the brood nest. The theory is that the queen is restricted, and less of her pheromone gets around the hive, precipitating swarming. This is not an issue in large colonies.

Spotty brood pattern: markedly scattered brood cells on a comb. It is sometimes caused by foulbrood.

Sublimation: transition from solid to gas without going through the liquid phase.

Super: a box of frames that store honey.

Supering: adding another super to the hive.

Supersedure: The colony replaces its queen without swarming. Only one to three QC are produced.

Starter strip: a thin ribbon of foundation or wood attached to the lower surface of the top bar of a frame, purposed to guide the bees to make straight comb

Stinger: Workers have a barbed needle-shaped stinger that is used for defence. It detaches when it pierces materials like human skin. This results in the bee being mortally wounded. The stinger continues to inject venom after it detaches. Queens have non-barbed stingers that they only use to fight other queens.

Stores: honey in the combs, less frequently, pollen stores.

Swarm: the verb or noun used to describe numerous bees leaving their hive with a queen to find a new home. A swarm refers to bees that are clumping together before they fly to their new home. A swarm also refers to a cloud of bees that are flying to their new home.

T

Thorax is the bit of an insect between its head and abdomen. It houses the flight muscles.

Test frame: contains some eggs (“a frame of eggs”). If put in a queenless hive, the bees will make QC. Rarely, it can be misleading if there are laying workers or the colony has recently swarmed.

Top space: the opposite to bottom space. It has nothing to do with the Earth's orbit.

Top ventilation: small vents under the roof are provided to remove water vapour in the winter and hot air in the summer. In Beeboxes, this is only necessary in blistering hot weather.

Trophallaxis: communication by sharing food.

U

Uniting colonies: combining two colonies to make one.