#apiculture

• Smoke — To expose an object, a space, or a food item to the direct action of smoke in order to preserve, flavor, disinfect, or blacken it; to overcook a dish, giving it an unpleasant burnt taste due to a lack of water or excessive heat. In an apicultural sense, it describes the act of calming bees using a special device that emits smoke.
• Bee smoker — As a noun, it designates a portable metallic device used in apiculture to produce smoke by burning vegetal materials, aimed at calming bees during hive interventions; it can also denote a person who smokes meat. As an adjective, it describes a chemical element, a type of wood, or a device that generates or retains smoke.
• Beekeeper — A person specialized in the breeding, care, and rational exploitation of bees for the purpose of obtaining honey, wax, or other derived apicultural products. In an old or regional sense, it designates a beekeeper practicing this trade according to local traditions.
• Apiary — A specially arranged place, structural shelter, or complex of hives where bees are bred and cared for; an apiary. It also represents a minor lexical variant for the collective action or process of organizing an apicultural activity.
• Swarm of bees — A multitude of bees considered globally; the totality of bees within a hive, an apiary, or a specific geographical region; a massive swarm of honeybees. It is an archaic or regional collective noun used historically in villages with beekeeping traditions.
• Apiary — A specially arranged place where beehives are located and bees are raised; an apiary or beeyard; the occupation or craft of beekeeping, including the totality of knowledge and techniques needed for their exploitation. Collectively, it can designate a large mass of moving bees.
• Beekeeping — The occupation, craft, or branch of agriculture dealing with the breeding, care, and rational exploitation of bees to obtain honey and other derived products; apiculture or beekeeping. Historically, it also represented the feudal tax or tribute levied on beehives in the Romanian lands.
• Female beekeeper — A female person specialized in the breeding, care, and management of honeybee colonies; a woman who practices beekeeping as a profession or hobby, managing hives and harvesting apicultural products (honey, wax, pollen, propolis).
• Apiculture — A branch of zootechnics and agriculture that deals with the study, breeding, care, and rational management of honeybees for harvesting bee products (honey, wax, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, venom), as well as for the pollination of entomophilous agricultural crops.
• Bee repellent — A chemical substance, natural preparation, or compound used to repel or drive away bees from a specific area; having the property of repelling insects of the Apidae family without causing them bodily harm, facilitating honey harvesting or phytosanitary treatments.
• Apilarnil — A natural, homogenized biological bee product obtained by trituration and filtration of the entire content of hive cells containing 7-day-old drone larvae (including the royal jelly and perilarval nutrients). Invented in Romania in 1980 by the apiarist Nicolae Ilieșiu, this nutrient complex is renowned for its energizing, biostimulating, and tonic properties, being rich in natural male hormones, amino acids, and vitamins.
• Wax dross — An archaic or regional technical term denoting a residue of inferior wax, a residual foam, or an aqueous solution resulting from the secondary melting or washing of honeycombs, historically used for making cheap candles or in various household processes; weak wax. In ancient dialects, the word referred to apicultural byproducts utilized in traditional crafts.
• To wash honeycombs — To wash, thin, or cleanse honeycombs or wax remnants using warm water, in order to separate coarse residues and collect inferior waxy fractions; to primary process apicultural byproducts through domestic boiling. In old craft dialects, the term described a preliminary stage in the traditional technology of refining wax.
• Arachnosis — A parasitic disease or infectious condition specific to honeybees or other beneficial insects, caused by the massive infestation of various mites or other small parasitic arachnids (such as the genus Acarapis). The disease affects the respiratory system or cutaneous integrity of the host insect, leading to a severe weakening of the colony and major economic losses in apiculture if not treated in time with specific acaricides.
• Aristeu — A benevolent minor deity in Greek mythology, the son of the god Apollo and the nymph Cyrene, revered as the protector of shepherds, hunters, and flocks. Aristaeus is traditionally considered the one who taught humanity the secrets of beekeeping, olive cultivation, cheese-making, and oil extraction, standing as a symbolic figure of rural civilization and agrarian arts.