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The Language of Beekeepers
An Ever-Evolving Skill
By: James E. Tew
Bee speak
Though one is not always aware of it, most of us speak more than one language. I suppose it could be called “technical English” or “specific English” – I don’t know. For example, in my hobby woodworking life, I leave a joint “proud” and I use “witness marks” to know where to place a saw “kerf” that will “celebrate” a joint that I have “sneaked up on”. I really can’t think of one occupation that does not come with some jargon required to communicate and function within that area. Farmers, computer programmers, carpenters, steel workers, drug dealers, physicians, movie producers, the U.S. military and librarians are just a few quick, albeit unrelated, examples of industries or groups that would have a language unique to their craft or profession.
If I said, “We really need to get out to the Metz yard and super-up with foundation. Maple’s about to pop and the bees are already broody,” would any rational person have more than an inkling of what I was saying? It’s annoying, isn’t it, when someone uses jargon that he knows won’t be clearly understood by another?
In plainer English what I said was, “We really need to go to the beeyard at Mr. Metz’s farm and put extra boxes on the bee hives. Those boxes should only have beeswax templates in each of the ten racks on which the bees can build new comb. It’s the time of the year when Maple trees are nearing bloom so they will be producing nectar from which the bees will produce honey and feed back to the baby bees that are already nearly developed.” The major difference between the way I wrote it the first time and the way I wrote it the second time is that I took nearly triple the number of words to say it simpler – but I think more non-bee people would understand my second statement more clearly. (I think that’s a conundrum – to say it simpler takes triple the words.)
Medium brood foundation
I realize now, that as with many other terms, words often have their original meaning deeply rooted in history. Specifically, I remember a term strange to me as I began to study beekeeping – “medium brood foundation”. The foundation part was easy enough. Foundation is a beeswax sheet embossed with the imprint of honey bee worker cells. When bees build comb on this printed pattern, we (usually) get nice, straight comb – which allows us to put these straight combs in an extractor.
The “medium-brood” part was what made no sense to me. Why would I want “medium-sized brood? If I was going to raise bees, I wanted large – or even extra-large brood so I would have large bees – ergo large honey crops. Well, silly me. It’s not small, medium, and large brood foundation, but rather light, medium, and heavy brood foundation. It seems that in equipment production years gone by, bee supply companies made brood foundation in different weights. Heavier brood foundation could stand more jostling and manipulation stress than the lighter foundations but cost more. In later years, as foundation became wire-reinforced or strengthened with plastic sheets, the need for differing weights of foundation passed except for one category – “medium brood foundation.”
Figure 1 The strange geometric beauty of comb foundation. In the early years, these foundation mills were hand cut. How tedious that must have been.
Ironically, today there is a new term that evolved about fifteen years ago – foundation inserts. These are plastic sheets that are embossed with worker-sized templates. Installing eyelets and then wiring the frame were eliminated by the heavier plastic sheets that are beeswax coated. Though not without issues, I like these sheets and the ease of installation. Medium brood foundation is passing into beekeeping oblivion.
Super
One of the most unique words in beekeeping parlance is the term “super” used as a noun. “What supers does that commercial outfit run?” would be a possible question one beekeeper would ask another. In archaic English the word “super” had a few different meanings than are commonly used now. Near the turn of the century, one of the more common definitions for super was “something in excess of” or “something paid over and above”. The older term appears to be all entangled with the word “supernumerary”. So, like some botanical hold-out from a past geologic era, the term “super” is still used by beekeepers today as it was many years ago.
And then there are the myriad sizes and names for supers along with all the contorted reasons for the different sizes and names. Dadant-depth, 6 & 5’s, shallows, half-depths, medium depths and deep supers (sometimes called a full-depths), are some of the names that one may come across in some of the old literature. Essentially, the primary reason for the varying depths of supers (width and length were always the same for all boxes) was the milled width of pine boards.
Figure 2 Where are the supers? (My hives may not look good, but my bees do.)
Anyone who commonly buys lumber today knows that a 1×6 pine board is anything but 1 inch by 6 inches. As the mill-width of lumber changed, so did the depth of supers. A second reason was weight. A full, deep super can weigh 70 pounds or so and is picked up with the fingertips. That can make for a long day and some real sore fingers.
Cutting a full depth super in half (or some other measurement less than a full-depth super) would lighten the load one must bear when lifting full boxes. The disadvantage of smaller and smaller supers – still today – is the cost to purchase and maintain all the extra boxes that would be required to give a bee colony the same amount of space as the deeps would give. But then again, back surgery can be terribly expensive in its own right, too, so factor that in.
Apparently, the early outer dimensions and depths were developed by manufacturers to minimize production costs. I was told by now long-gone beekeepers that the box sizes were determined so wood scraps could be used for some other hive part. Hypothetically, a 1×8” pine board would be cut down to 6 5/8” in order for the remaining scrap strip to be used for the wood rim on an outer cover. The bees never really had a say in the box size matter.
Mindless ramblings
My grandfather, born in 1898, died many years ago. With his passing, and all the others of his generation, so passed parts of our language. It wasn’t just the words alone that were different, but it was also the phraseology. It generally was not a good thing to do when one “sashayed” at a church social. As a young kid, one of the worst things I could do was to visit someone’s home and “plunder” while I was there. Young couples would find a secluded spot and “spark” – while in my day, young people “necked.” I don’t know what the word my grandkids would use today. (I don’t really want to know.) Someone could be teched (tetched) meaning “touched in the head”. When you had the croup, you had a loud, horse, barking cough and you hung your clothes in the chifforobe (which was in the same room as the chiffonnier).
I’m annoyed with myself. When I hear these old terms, I remember my grandfather’s language, but I’ve forgotten most of it. When I hear a word used like “smelt” (somewhat archaic past tense use of “smell”), I always think, “Now there’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time.” Our language is always changing and it should so it can adapt and stay alive. Enough of this.
Brood
The sex, amount and condition of the “brood” in the colony is of frequent discussion in beekeeper circles. A hive can have “open brood” (either eggs or larval stage), “sealed brood” (developing bees that are in the pupal stage and have a wax covering over them) and sealed brood can be either worker or drone sealed brood. In fact, sealed brood may be called capped brood. One might say of a colony after a Spring inspection, “That colony had seven frames of brood – most of it sealed. I even saw some drone brood. That hive’s going to be busting strong – if it doesn’t swarm.”
She vs. he
Speaking of brood, you may recall that all worker honey bees are sterile females. These females are the only ones that sting. Therefore, never say, “Watch out! He’ll sting you!” Males can’t sting. It is always, “She will sting you” or “Yes, she stung me.”
Queen
The queen always excites interest. “Hey! Wanna see the queen?” is an exclamation commonly heard in bee classes and gatherings. The queen is the only fertile female in the colony. She has a sordid sex life – but only briefly – and that mating event lasts her a lifetime (maybe one to three years). If a colony is queen-right, it has a queen in the colony. Seeing single eggs in numerous cells is a dead give-away that she’s on the job. If the queen is being (or has been) superseded, she is being replaced by colony decree. A queen can be a “fertile queen” or a “mated queen” (look for eggs) or she can be infertile or a “virgin”.
A queen can fail (a clue for a failing queen would be few to no eggs being present). A foreign queen (a queen that was not “introduced or installed” in the colony) will be “balled” or “balled up” (attacked by resident workers bees). Virgin queens “emerge” from their cells and fight amongst themselves. To find each other in the dark hive, they “pipe” which is a tiny tooting sound. Virgins not yet emerged from their cells but already mature, will toot in response to the call-to-battle, but their tiny toot sounds more like a tiny quack. So, “rival” queens pipe and quack to find each other in the dark hive. These sounds can be heard from outside the hive. I promise that this is true.
Flow
A lot of things “flow” in beekeeping – not the least of which is money – and that usually flows the wrong way. Aside from that, nectar “flows” from blossoms in the Spring. Bees collect nectar and process it into honey resulting in a “honey flow” from the hive. Though not exactly correct, pollen can even flow – but all beekeepers in the know will know what you mean. Normally, pollen “comes in” the hive. For example, while looking concerned and knowledgeable, one would say, “It’s been warm for four days now. Are they bringing in pollen?” Processed honey flows from the “extractor” (not the honey spinner), after frames (not racks) have been uncapped (not de-capped). Don’t extract “green” honey (honey that is uncapped; therefore, not ripe) for it will ferment.
Figure 3 Apple blooms to most people, but to beekeepers this is a nectar and pollen flow.
More mindless ramblings
These comments have absolutely nothing to do with beekeeping directly. I’ve just got these thoughts on my mind. I took a formal course in electricity in undergraduate school. During labs, we were occasionally required to “work with one hand in our pocket”. The reason was (supposedly) that it would be more difficult to electrocute one’s self (I never have known if I believed that or not). The class helped, but I certainly didn’t learn all there was to know for though the years, I’ve tripped more circuits and trashed more fuses than should have been my lot.
My Dad was always the one elected to plug in some “repaired” electrical device while the rest of the us would stand by with our fingers in our ears. Having left home years ago to establish my own home, that somber task was transferred to me. Having recently tried to wire around a broken lightening arrestor in an old radio – it literally detonated when I plugged it in. So, I was a bit more cautious when a 20-year-old drill abruptly died. One second it worked fine while another second later it could not have been any deader. I tore the drill into a hundred small “drill pieces”. No obvious problems. Must be the variable-speed switch.
I opened the “black-box” switch mechanism to a fiddle-bump’s worst nightmare. Springs, contacts, and copper things went flying. Though a bad situation, I’d been in situations like this before (e.g., I once opened the mechanism of a 35 mm single-lens reflex camera. Two weeks later I finally got it put back together). I carefully, carefully searched for parts in the vicinity that looked as though they could have come from the innards of an electric drill and came up with a few tiny pieces.
After two days of studying wear patterns and electrical pathways, I had the switch re-assembled except for one piece. It looked like an electrical contact of some sort, but after studying the drill’s switch mechanism for hours. I admitted defeat. I gave up.
As is my retentive habit, I reassembled the drill anyway – minus one body part. With the dead radio on my mind, I tested the drill and to my absolute surprise, it worked. I mean all features of the drill functioned. I have never known of a situation when one could have parts left over and something still work correctly. Even so, later today, I’ll be stopping by to check out new drills.
Acquired skill
Learning to speak “beekeeping” is an acquired skill. Last Spring, my oldest grandson abruptly decided to take up beekeeping. He commonly makes beekeeping jargon misspeaks, but I pick and choose the ones that I correct. I don’t want to embarrass or overload him with picayune details. It is helpful for me to review when bee terms are misused and how those new to beekeeping can form their own “bee speak.”
Thank you
I hope you know that I am always appreciative of the time you spend reading and listening to my ramblings. Thank you.
Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com
Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com
