Glossary

Scout bees are specialized foragers that search for resources like nectar or pollen, or new nest sites for a swarm.

Sex pheromones are released by organisms to attract members of the opposite sex to mate with them. In honey bees, queen pheromone is a sex pheromone that attracts drones.

Social immunity is collective social behavior that aims to reduce, control, or eliminate parasites and pathogens. Social immunity encompasses a variety of behaviors such as hygienic behavior, grooming, removing dead bodies from the nest, and creating a social fever.

A species is a group of organisms that is capable of mating and producing fertile offspring. Species are the basic rank in the classification of life. Species names are always italicized. Honey bees are the species Apis mellifera.

The spermatheca is a sac in a female insect’s abdomen that stores sperm after mating. Queens have a spermatheca. Worker bees also have a spermatheca, but relative to the queen’s, theirs are tiny and cannot store sperm.

Spiracles are small holes along the thorax and abdomen of a honey bee that allow respiration to take place. They are the openings where the tracheae exit the body.

The management practice of taking a strong colony and splitting it into two smaller colonies by moving over the appropriate number of frames of brood, adults, food stores, and comb. Afterward, the original (often the stronger of the two) colony is the referred to as the ‘parent colony’; the newly created colony is referred to as the ‘split’.

A stock is a group of honey bees bred for a specific combination of traits.

A subspecies (or race) is a genetically distinct (and often geographically isolated) population of organisms within one species. Subspecies have differences in physical and behavioral traits, but are able to mate with each other, where their offspring are called ‘hybrids’. A subspecies name is designated by the third part of a scientific name. For example, the Carniolan bee is called Apis mellifera carnica, where carnica is the subspecies/race.

The sucking pump is a muscle-lined sac within the mouth of the honey bee that allows it to suck up liquids through its proboscis. The pump also allows for nectar to be regurgitated for sharing with nestmates or storing in cells to make honey.

Sugar syrup is a solution of sugar and water used as a carbohydrate supplement for honey bee colonies. It is most often mixed as one part sugar to two parts water, or two parts sugar to one part water.

Summer bees are the bees that are born and live during the active, warm season. They are slightly physiologically different from winter bees, which are produced within the colony from late summer to late fall and survive the winter.

A superorganism is a group of related, social individuals working together to effectively cooperate as one large organism.

Supersedure is the natural replacement of an old or failing queen with a younger queen by the workers in the colony.

Supersedure cells are a specific type of queen cell that worker bees build while their queen is still present in the colony, with the intention of superseding her. These queen cells are distinct from emergency queen cells.

noun: A swarm is a cluster of bees that has left its old nest, including the queen of the original colony, that has temporarily settled in the open before locating a new home. verb: Swarming is the name given to the act of these bees leaving the nest. This process is colony-level reproduction, as only a fraction of bees leave the original nest and the colony effectively divides itself into two (or more) colonies.

Swarm cells are a specific type of queen cell that worker bees build while their queen is still present in the colony. The colony is then prepared to swarm, and the swarmed queen will be naturally replaced with a new queen from a swarm cell.