Sweet, golden honey is one of Alabama's smaller agricultural "crops" that is harvested from the production of honey bees. In Alabama several varieties of honey - including clover, sourwood and wildflower can be bought.

Honey production is one reason that there are more than 1,200 registered beekeepers in the state. Another area of bee production, is that of selling queen bees for breeding purposes.

Alabama has a highly respected packaged bee industry. Queen bees that have been certified disease free are packaged and shipped to beekeepers who want to increase their hive production. Alabama queen bees are shipped into every state and to several foreign countries.

In a hive or bee colony, each bee has an important part. The queen bee lays eggs and the drones mate with the queen. The worker bees gather nectar and pollen, make nectar into honey, feed the queen, drones and larvae, make wax honeycomb and do many other jobs.

Alabama agriculture, like a bee colony, has many parts; each part is as important as the next. The relatively small honeybee industry is an important part of Alabama agriculture.

Click on the Bee for Alabama Data

Web Link for Africanized Honey Bees

Glossery of Bee Terms

Anther: the male reproductive part of a flower. Contains pollen.
Bee: an insect belonging to the superfamily Apoidea
Brood: developing larvae, usually in social insects
Cocoon: a pupa surrounded by a silk covering produced by the insect
Colony: a group of social insects having a queen and workers
Diapause: a hibernation like state in insects
Drone: a reproductive male in social insects
Flight Activity: in leafcutting bees, the amount of flying bees near the nests or shelter
Gallon: 10,000 leafcutting bees
Gregarious: living in groups but not forming a true social colony
Hatch: emergence of adults insects
Incubate: to maintain in an environment suitable for development or hatching. In leafcutting bees, cocoons with mature larvae are warmed after diapause to promote adult emergence.
Larva: in insects, an immature form, not resembling the adult; pl. larvae
Non-Apis bee: a bee not belonging to the genus Apis. A bee other than the Honeybee
Oligolectic: foraging from a few species of flowers
Parasitoid: an insect that feeds on or in another insect, and causes death in the host insect; one host is killed in the life of the parasitoid
Pistil: the flower part that contains the ovules
Pollen: the male gamete from a seed plant
Pollen ball/Pollen mass: an unconsumed clump of pollen in a bee nest. Can be caused by lack of an egg laid, egg mortality, early larval mortality.
Pollen bee: any bee other than the honeybee. See non-Apis bee.
Pollenizer: a plant that is a source of pollen
Pollination: the transfer of pollen from a stamen to a stigma
Pollinator: an agent that causes pollen to be transferred from one flower to another
Polylectic: foraging from many species of flowers
Polyvoltine: having multiple generations in a year
Predator: an animal (can be an insect) that feeds on other animals (also can be an insect) and consumes many prey in it's life
Prepupa: a fully mature larva prior to becoming a pupa
Pupa: a stage between larva and adult; a resting stage, no feeding takes place; pl. pupae
Queen: a female reproductive in social insects
Social: insects that live in a organized groups and display a division of labor and overlapping generations
Solitary: insects that do not display a division of labor and each individual is reproductive; nonsocial.
Stamen: the flower part that produces the male gamete, consisting of a filament and an anther
Stigma: part of the pistil that receives pollen, the female part of the flower Species
Teneral: a newly emerged adult insect, with a soft integument
Univoltine: having a single generation in a year
Wasp: an insect of the order Hymenoptera, usually with a hard shiny body, usually with biting mouthparts, and a predatory or parasitic life style
Worker: a non-reproductive female in social insects