Glossary

See subspecies.

Reproductive division of labor is the separation in reproduction among individuals in a colony. In honey bee colonies, the queen caste specializes in reproduction, while the worker caste specializes in non-reproductive duties such as foraging and brood care. Reproductive division of labor is one of the three hallmarks of eusociality.

Resins are sticky substances secreted by plants and collected by bees to make propolis.

The queen’s retinue is the group of young worker bees that surround and care for her.

Roaring is the distinctive loud buzzing sound coming from a colony that has been recently made queenless.

Robbing is the name for honey bees collecting (stealing) honey or nectar from another colony instead of from flowers.

A robbing screen is piece of hive equipment that is a screen placed on the colony entrance to reduce robbers from gaining entry to the hive.

A round dance is in fact a mistaken term: waggle dances communicating sources of food that are very close to the hive are so short in duration that they look like a different sort of dance, once called a round dance. We now know that these dances are just a short waggle dance.

Royal jelly is a very nutritious food source secreted by the hypopharyngeal glands and mandibular glands in nurse bees’ heads. It is milky in consistency and contains water, sugars, salts, fatty acids and other lipids, vitamins, amino acids, and proteins. Developing queens receive royal jelly during their entire larval phase, whereas developing workers are fed royal jelly for only the first two to three days.