Encyclopedia P - Beekeeping Supplies Protective Clothing Beekeeping Equipment

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A three-pound package of bees (approximately 9000 bees)	**package bees ^{See it} a mass of adult honeybees (2 to 5 pounds), shipped for installation in a new hive; usually contains a queen in a queen cage. There are approximately three thousand bees per pound in a package, so a 5 pound package would contain about 15,000 bees. A mature, healthy colony already established in a hive may contain up to 60,000 bees. See also:** Installing Your New Hives, Package Honeybee & Queen Suppliers
	*paralysis* a virus disease of adult bees which affects their ability to use legs or wings normally
	*parthenogenesis* the development of young from unfertilized eggs. In honeybees the unfertilized eggs produce drones.
	*PDB (Paradichlorobenzene)* crystals used to fumigate combs against wax moth
Gardstar, used to break the brood cycle of the Small Hive Beetle	**permethrin ^{See it}** See GardStar
A queen honeybee secretes pheromones to control the colony's activities	**pheromone ^{See it} a chemical substance that is produced by honeybees and serves as a specific stimulus to other honeybees in the colony for one or more behavioral responses.. A queen honeybee secretes pheromones to communicate the need to support brood production, preparation for swarming, queen health, etc. A guard bee or worker bee secretes pheromones that alert other bees to conditions that endanger the hive. See also:** queen substance
	*piping* a series of sounds made by a queen, frequently before she emerges from her cell
A cloud of new field bees taking their play flight	play flight *^{See it}* See exploratory flight
Honeybee collecting pollen and nectar from a prickly-pear cactus	**pollen ^{See it}** the male reproductive cell bodies produced by the anthers of flowers, collected and used by honeybees as their source of protein, essential enzymes and vitamins
Field bee returning to the hive with a full pollen basket Worker bees store pollen in the honeycomb cells	**pollen basket ^{See it} an area on the outside of the honeybee's hind legs which is designed for carrying pollen. As the field bee forages on flowers, pollen naturally collects in this area on its legs. The pollen basket is an area of depression on the hind legs that is surrounded by curved spines or hairs, which trap the pollen inside the "basket" as the bee moves its legs across the flower's anther. A honeybee also uses the pollen basket to collect propolis. When the bee arrives back at its hive, it deposits the pollen into an empty honeycomb cell reserved for this purpose. You can see pollen stored in some of the cells in the illustration at left, appearing as light yellow-colored powder packed down into the cells. You can even see the fresh pollen cargo a field bee has just unloaded from its baskets into one of the cells, just to the right of center. The pollen has not yet been packed down for compact storage of more pollen, so you can clearly see the two pollen nodules that have been extracted from its baskets. See also:** pollination
Beekeeper placing pollen patty within the beehive	**pollen cakes ^{See it} moist mixtures of either pollen supplements or substitutes fed to honeybees in early spring to stimulate brood rearing; also called pollen patties See also:** Pollen Supplement
	*pollen insert* a device inserted in the entrance of a colony into which hand-collected pollen is placed. As the bees leave the hive and pass through the trap, some of the pollen adheres to their bodies and is carried to the blossom, resulting in cross-pollination
Dry pollen substitute	**pollen substitute ^{See it} a high-protein mixture that can adequately replace pollen in the honeybee's diet, and typically includes soybean flour, powdered skim milk, brewer's yeast, or a mixture of these. Substitutes are used in place of pollen to stimulate brood rearing in periods of pollen shortage, such as early spring or during a drought. Pollen substitutes are also needed during the first two weeks after installing a package of bees or a swarm in an empty hive. And substitutes are invaluable in a more arid environment where there is little or no natural pollen during a portion of the foraging season. See also:** pollen supplement, Pollen Substitutes vs. Supplements
Pollen supplement patty	**pollen supplement ^{See it} a high-protein honeybee diet typically containing 5 to 25 percent pollen; any mixture of pollen and other ingredients used to stimulate brood rearing in periods of pollen shortage, such as early spring or during a drought. BeeCARE recommends a pollen substitute for general use instead of a supplement. See also:** pollen substitute, Pollen Substitutes vs. Supplements
	*pollen trap* a wooden device that removes pollen from the pollen baskets of incoming field bees; people use the pollen as a natural dietary supplement
A honeybee performing her natural role as creation's most efficient pollinator	pollination *^{See it}* the fertilization of a plant through the transfer of pollen from the flower's anther to its stigma; flowers that are the most likely to benefit from honeybee pollination are yellow or blue, since many have structural patterns that can be seen only under ultraviolet light, which honeybees can detect. A minimum of 30% of the food we eat each day comes from crops that depend on honeybees to be pollinated. Without honeybee pollination, a large number of crops cannot produce in either the quality or quantity needed for mass human consumption. In fact, many kinds of plants cannot produce at all without honeybee pollination, and would die out! Think about that fact next time you walk into the produce aisle at the grocery store and enjoy the wide variety, beautiful displays, and reasonable prices of your fruits and vegetables. It's there largely because of the hard-working honeybee. *See also:* honeybee
A bumblebee pollinating a morning glory plant	pollinator *^{See it}* the insect or other agent responsible for pollination, such as a honeybee, wasp, beetle, or the wind *See also:* pollination
Pollen source in a sunflower blossom	**pollenizer ^{See it}** the source of pollen from the plant involved in pollination
	*prime swarm* the first, or primary, swarm to leave the parent colony, usually with the old queen *See also:* swarm
A bee drinking sugar syrup with her proboscis	**proboscis ^{See it}** a flexible, tubular sucking organ that extends or that is capable of being extended from the mouth of a honeybee (its tongue), used for feeding on nectar, syrup, or water, and for sampling food
Scraping propolis from the hive surfaces	**propolis ^{See it}** a sticky, waxy material made from sap and other resins of tree and plant buds; honeybees collect and use propolis as a sort of cement, to strengthen their hives and seal cracks. Propolis is harvested from hives by beekeepers to use in commercial applications, such as wood polish. The most expensive violins in the world, the Stradivarius, are finished with honeybee propolis wood polish.
Worker bees capping a pupa cell	**pupa ^{See it} a honeybee in an intermediate, quiescent form; during the pupal stage, the immature bee is enclosed in a capped brood cell until it emerges as an adult. In this illustration, you can see the white head of a pupa protruding from an uncapped brood cell, in the center of the picture. A pupa actually looks like an adult honeybee, except that it is all white, like the larva. The yellow, capped cells around this pupa contain other pupae that have already been capped. If you look closely, you can see the pupa's eyes on the left and right sides of the cell. A pupa's eyes are white, unlike the black eyes of the adult honeybees around it. When the pupa is ready to emerge as an adult bee, it will chew through its cell cap. See also:** bee metamorphosis, Queen and Her Brood, Queen Laying Eggs

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