BEEKEEPERS’ DICITIONARY 
939 
food is probably formed in part, at least, by 
glands in the anterior part of the head, which 
open by a duct in the pharynx. They are well 
developed in nurse bees, absent in drones, and 
developed in female bumblebees, but are rudi¬ 
mentary in the solitary bees, which do not 
“nurse” their brood. 
Sacbrood.—A disease of brood. Slightly contagi¬ 
ous but not serious. 
Saccharose.— See “Sucrose.” 
Scholtz candy.-—See “Queen Candy.” 
Sealed brood. —Brood that has been capped or 
sealed over by the bees with a somewhat por¬ 
ous capping; mostly in the pupa stage. See 
“Capped Brood.” 
Section. —A small frame or box open on two op¬ 
posite sides, that 'is placed on a hive to receive 
surplus comb honey of slightly less than a 
pound ; a section box. Also, the honey contained 
in a section box. 
Section holder. —A device for holding sections 
while in process of being filled on the hive. 
Self-hiver. —Any device by which the bees of a 
swarm are induced to enter of their own accord 
a hive prepared for them. 
Self-spacing frames. —Frames so made that, push¬ 
ed together, they will be spaced the proper dis¬ 
tance apart from center to center (usually 1% 
inches); see “Fixed Frames.” 
Separator. —A very thin board or sheet of tin 
. placed between sections to make the bees build 
the combs accurately. 
Septum. —The middle of a honeycomb. 
Shaken swarm or shook swarm. —An artificial 
swarm made by shaking bees from a very popu¬ 
lous colony- into a fresh hive. By this means 
natural swarming is closely imitated. See 
“Brushed Swarm.” See “Artificial Swarming.” 
Shipping case. — A light box, often with glass on 
one side, of varying size, in which section hon¬ 
ey may be shipped. The sizes most commonly 
in use are those containing 12 and 24 sections 
each. 
Skep. — A beehive without movable frames, espe¬ 
cially one made of straw. 
Skeppist. —An old-fashioned beekeeper. 
Slumgum. —The refuse from a wax-extractor. 
Shook swarm.- —See “Shaken swarm.” 
Smoker. —An implement having a fire-box with bel¬ 
lows attached, by means of which smokg may 
be blown upon bees; a bee-smoker. 
Solar wax-extractor. —A glass-covered box melt¬ 
ing beeswax by the heat of the sun. 
Solitary bees. —Bees that do not live in colonies or 
families like the common honeybee. Of solitary 
bees there are over 2000 species in North Amer¬ 
ica alone, or about one-fourth of all the species 
in the world. They are of no value in the pro¬ 
duction of honey, but do assist in the work of 
pollination of flowers. 
Specific gravity. —The ratio of the weight of a 
substance compared with an equal volume of wa¬ 
ter. The specific gravity of honey is 1.4 (Baume 
scale 42 degrees). In plain English, honey 
weighs 12 pounds per gallon. Beeswax has a 
specific gravity of .97. Water, 1.00. 
Spermatheca. —A small sac attached to the oviduct 
of the queen, in which are stored the sperma¬ 
tozoa received from the drone in the act of copu¬ 
lation. 
Spermatozoon. —One of the germs contained in 
the semen of drones. (Plural, spermatozoa.) 
Spiracles. —Bees breathe by a system of internal 
tubes, known as tracheae, which branch min¬ 
utely to all parts of the organism. The exter¬ 
nal openings of the tracheae, located on the 
sides of the thorax and abdomen, are called 
spiracles. 
Spreading brood.—Putting a comb without brood 
between two combs of brood to induce the queen 
to lay in the former. 
Stamens. — The organs of flowers producing pol¬ 
len. 
Starter. — A small piece of comb or foundation 
fastened in a frame or section to start the bees 
to building at the right place. See “Comb 
Foundation.’ ’ 
Steam honey-knife.—An uncapping-knife kept 
continuously hot with steam from a light hose 
to facilitate the slicing off of the cappings for 
the purpose of extracting. See “Uncapping- 
knife.’ ’ 
Stigma.—That part of the pistil of a flower which 
receives the pollen for the fecundation o-f the 
ovules; the end of the pistil. 
Strain.—Although scientists may not all agree as 
to using this word. John Phin, in his excellent 
Dictionary of Practical Apiculture, says it “is 
one of the most useful, expressive and legitimate 
words that we have, and this is shown by the 
extraordinary difficulty of finding a synonym for 
it.” Suppose one has a certain race of bees. 
Among them he finds some that are specially 
noted for some particular quality, good or bad, 
as gentleness or viciousness, and this quality 
descends with more or less certainty to their 
posterity. This quality does not differentiate 
them from others of the same race sufficiently 
to constitute them a different race or breed, but 
it is of sufficient importance to warrant their 
being called a strain. Moreover, the character¬ 
istics of a strain are not so fixed as the charac¬ 
teristics of a race, and without great care the 
particular characteristics will disappear, or as 
we say “the strain runs out.” See “Races of 
Bees” in the body of this work. 
Sucrose.—One of the five important sugars. Re¬ 
fined white sugar, either cane or beet, is pure 
sucrose. 
Sugar.—The term sugar generally refers to sucrose, 
which is the sole constituent of refined white 
sugar, cane or beet. However, there are four 
other important food sugars, classified as fol¬ 
lows : 
Name. Synonyms. 
1. Sucrose. . . . Saccharose 
‘ 1 Sugar’ ’ 
2. Lactose.Milk sugar 
3. Maltose. . . . Malt sugar 
4. Dextrose... Glucose 
Grape sugar 
5. Levulose... .Fructose 
Fruit sugar 
Where found. 
Cane or beet sug¬ 
ar or maple sugar. 
All milk. 
Malt products and 
■corn syrup or 
com’l “glucose.” 
Honey, invert sug¬ 
ar, com’l “glu¬ 
cose’ ’ or corn 
syrup, fruits. 
Honey, invert sug¬ 
ar, fruits. 
Super.—A receptacle in which bees store surplus 
honey; so called because placed “over” the 
hive. 
Supersedure.—The rearing of a new queen to suc¬ 
ceed or supersede the old queen, when her fer¬ 
tility or egg-laying power begins to fail. The 
old queen either departs with a swarm or is 
put to death. 
Surplus or surplus honey.—Honey over and above 
what the bees need for their own use, and which 
the beekeeper takes from them; honey stored 
elsewhere than in the brood-combs. 
Surplus apartment.—The apartment in which sur¬ 
plus honey is stored. 
Swarm.—A large number of bees with a queen 
leaving the mother colony to find new lodgings 
and found a new colony. 
Swarm-catcher.—A net placed at the entrance of 
a hive, a basket at the end of a pole, or any 
other device intended to secure a swarm as it 
leaves the hive or afterward. 
Swarming season.—The period of the year when 
swarms usually issue. 
Syrian bees.—They were first brought to the 
United States from Palestine in 1880. In size 
and color they resemble Italian bees but they 
swarm excessively, and are relatively of little 
value. 
