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Suzanne Batra introduced the term "eusocial" [1] after studying nesting in Halictid bees including Halictus latisignatus, [2] pictured.. The term "eusocial" was introduced in 1966 by Suzanne Batra, who used it to describe nesting behavior in Halictid bees, on a scale of subsocial/solitary, colonial/communal, semisocial, and eusocial, where a colony is started by a single individual.
Swarming is a honey bee colony's natural means of reproduction.In the process of swarming, a single colony splits into two or more distinct colonies. [1]Swarming is mainly a spring phenomenon, usually within a two- or three-week period depending on the locale, but occasional swarms can happen throughout the producing season.
Painted wooden beehives with active honey bees A honeycomb created inside a wooden beehive. A beehive is an enclosed structure where some honey bee species of the subgenus Apis live and raise their young. Though the word beehive is used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature distinguishes nest from hive.
Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus Apis are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept.
Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony, the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. The three types of honey bees in a hive are: queens (egg-producers), workers (non-reproducing females), and drones (males whose main duty is to find and mate with a queen). Unlike the worker bees, drones do not sting.
Honey bees require water to maintain osmotic homeostasis, prepare liquid brood food, and cool the hive through evaporation. A colony's water needs can generally be met by nectar foraging as it has high water content. Occasionally on hot days or when nectar is limited, foragers will collect water from streams or ponds to meet the needs of the hive.
A nucleus colony can be combined with the larger colony to re-queen it with a much smaller break in brood rearing. The terms 'nuc' and 'split' are not strictly interchangeable. While a nuc may have a number of different uses, a split more often refers to dividing a colony for the purposes of growing the removed bees back to a full-sized colony.
The annual colony cycle of honeybees involves migration, swarming, and absconding. A. florea migrate seasonally from one habitat to another. This might increase colony fitness, as the honeybees search for new territories, resources, or a reduction in parasites. Once a colony has outgrown its hive space, it will reproduce via swarming.