Beekeeping in the context of Queen bee

A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect from the genus Apis of the largest bee family, Apidae. Honey bees are known for their construction of perennial nests within cavities (i.e. beehives) containing hexagonal cells made of secreted wax, their large colony sizes, and their routine regurgitation of digested carbohydrates as surplus food storage in the form of honey, the lattermost of which distinguishes their hives as a prized foraging target of many mellivorous animals including honey badgers, bears and human hunter-gatherers.

Although honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees, they are the bee clade most familiar to humans and are also the most valuable beneficial insects to agriculture and horticulture. The best-known honey bee species is the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), which was domesticated and farmed (i.e. beekeeping) for honey production and crop pollination. The only other domesticated species is the eastern honey bee (Apis cerana), which are raised in South, Southeast and East Asia.

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new nest-site locations with other members of the colony.

The waggle dance and the round dance are two forms of dance behaviour that are part of a continuous transition. As the distance between the resource and the hive increases, the round dance transforms into variations of a transitional dance, which, when communicating resources at even greater distances, becomes the waggle dance. In the case of Apis mellifera ligustica, the round dance is performed until the resource is about ten metres (33 ft) away from the hive, transitional dances are performed when the resource is at a distance of twenty to thirty metres (66 to 98 ft) away from the hive, and finally, when it is located at distances greater than forty metres (130 ft) from the hive, the waggle dance is performed. However, even close to the nest, the round dance can contain elements of the waggle dance, such as a waggle portion. It has therefore been suggested that the term waggle dance is better for describing both the waggle dance and the round dance.

A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal prismatic cells built from beeswax by honey bees in their nests to contain their brood (eggs, larvae, and pupae) and stores of honey and pollen.

Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey. Honey bees consume about 8.4 lb (3.8 kg) of honey to secrete 1 lb (450 g) of wax, and so beekeepers may return the wax to the hive after harvesting the honey to improve honey outputs. The structure of the comb may be left basically intact when honey is extracted from it by uncapping and spinning in a centrifugal honey extractor. If the honeycomb is too worn out, the wax can be reused in a number of ways, including making sheets of comb foundation with a hexagonal pattern. Such foundation sheets allow the bees to build the comb with less effort, and the hexagonal pattern of worker-sized cell bases discourages the bees from building the larger drone cells. Fresh, new comb is sometimes sold and used intact as comb honey, especially if the honey is being spread on bread rather than used in cooking or as a sweetener.

Mellivory is a term for the eating of honey. Honey is a sweet and viscous substance created by some eusocial insects, notably bees, for consumption by members of their hives, especially their young. Honey is also consumed by many other animals including human beings, who have developed beekeeping to make supplies of honey both reliable and plentiful. Despite honey's limited antimicrobial properties (caused by the very high osmotic pressure of its concentrated sugars), it remains a food source for a variety of microorganisms.

Many clothing materials have been used to make garments throughout history. Grasses, furs and much more complex and exotic materials have been used. Cultures near the Arctic Circle, make their wardrobes out of processed furs and skins. Different cultures have added cloth to leather and skins as a way to replace real leather. A wide range of fibers, including natural, cellulose, and synthetic fibers, can be used to weave or knit cloth. From natural fibers like cotton and silk to synthetic ones like polyester and nylon, most certainly reflects culture.

Humans have shown extreme inventiveness in devising clothing solutions to environmental hazards and the distinction between clothing and other protective equipment is not always clear-cut; examples include space suit, air conditioned clothing, armor, diving suit, swimsuit, bee-keeper's protective clothing, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and protective clothing in general.

In beekeeping, bee brood or brood refers to the eggs, larvae and pupae of honeybees. The brood of Western honey bees develops within a bee hive. In man-made, removable frame hives, such as Langstroth hives, each frame which is mainly occupied by brood is called a brood frame. Brood frames usually have some pollen and nectar or honey in the upper corners of the frame. The rest of the brood frame cells may be empty or occupied by brood in various developmental stages. During the brood raising season, the bees may reuse the cells from which brood has emerged for additional brood or convert it to honey or pollen storage. Bees show remarkable flexibility in adapting cells to a use best suited for the hive's survival.

Wax foundation or honeycomb base is a plate made of wax forming the base of one honeycomb. It is used in beekeeping to give the bees a foundation on which they can build the honeycomb. Wax foundation is considered one of the most important inventions in modern beekeeping.

A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees, a profession known as beekeeping. The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, or other receptacles. The beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper owns the hives or boxes and associated equipment. The bees are free to forage or leave (swarm) as they desire. Bees usually return to the beekeeper's hive as it presents a clean, dark, sheltered home.

Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin apis, bee; cf. apiary).

Varroa destructor, the Varroa mite, is an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on honey bees and is one of the most damaging honey bee pests in the world. A significant mite infestation leads to the death of a honey bee colony, usually in the late autumn through early spring. Without management for Varroa mite, honey bee colonies typically collapse within 2 to 3 years in temperate climates. These mites can infest Apis mellifera, the western honey bee, and Apis cerana, the Asian honey bee. Since it is very similar physically to the closely related Varroa jacobsoni, these species were thought to be one prior to 2000, but they were found to be two separate species by DNA analysis.

Parasitism of bees by mites in the genus Varroa is called varroosis. The Varroa mite can reproduce only in a honey bee colony. It attaches to the body of the bee and weakens the bee. The species is a vector for at least five debilitating bee viruses, including RNA viruses such as the deformed wing virus (DWV). The Varroa mite is the parasite with possibly the most pronounced economic impact on the beekeeping industry and is one of multiple stress factors contributing to the higher levels of bee losses around the world. Varroa mite has also been implicated as one of the multiple causes of colony collapse disorder.

Aristaeus (/ærɪˈstiːəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἀρισταῖος, romanized: Aristaios) was the mythological culture hero credited with the discovery of many rural useful arts and handicrafts, including beekeeping. He was the son of the huntress Cyrene and Apollo.

Aristaeus ("the best") was a cult title in many places: Boeotia, Arcadia, Ceos, Sicily, Sardinia, Thessaly, and Macedonia; consequently a set of "travels" was imposed, connecting his epiphanies in order to account for these widespread manifestations.

In beekeeping, a Langstroth hive is any vertically modular beehive that has the key features of vertically hung frames, a bottom board with entrance for the bees, boxes containing frames for brood and honey (the lowest box for the queen to lay eggs, and boxes above where honey may be stored) and an inner cover and top cap to provide weather protection. In a Langstroth hive, the bees build honeycomb into frames, which can be moved with ease. The frames are designed to prevent bees from attaching honeycombs where they would either connect adjacent frames, or connect frames to the walls of the hive. The movable frames allow the beekeeper to manage the bees in a way which was formerly impossible.

The key innovation responsible for the hive's design was the discovery of bee space, a gap size between 6.4 and 9.5 mm (1⁄4 and 3⁄8 in) in which bees would not build burr comb, nor fill the gap with propolis. Modern Langstroth hives have different dimensions from L. L. Langstroth's beehive that was originally patented in 1852 and manufactured until circa 1920, but retain the main features of allowing bee space, as well as easy access, which works well for the bees, but also makes management of the beehive easier for the beekeeper. The standard beehive used in many parts of the world for beekeeping is based on the Langstroth hive.

The Kwegu are an ethnic group that lives on the western banks of the Omo River in the newly formed South Ethiopia Region. Some members of the Kwegu also live on the eastern banks of the river among the Mursi. Previously they were hunter-gatherers, but today they are engaged in a mixed economy of hunting, farming, beekeeping, and fishing.