apiary

American  

[ay-pee-er-ee] / ˈeɪ piˌɛr i /

noun

• apiaries
  plural

1. a place in which a colony or colonies of bees are kept, as a stand or shed for beehives or a bee house containing a number of beehives.

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apiary British  

/ ˈeɪpɪərɪ /

noun

1. a place where bees are kept, usually in beehives

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• apiaries
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of apiary

1645–55; < Latin apiārium beehive, equivalent to api ( s ) bee + -ārium -ary

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Explanation

An apiary is a structure for keeping bees. If you love to eat fresh honey and don't have access to a farmer's market, you might consider building an apiary in your backyard. Apiaries have nothing to do with apes! Rather, the word derives from apis, the Latin word for "bee." Humans have raised bees for their honey for thousands of years; the oldest known apiaries were built by ancient Egyptians. The word itself didn't appear until the 1650s, around the time that apiarists, or beekeepers, started constructing apiaries resembling the ones in current use. Today, there are apiaries of various sizes on every continent and in every U.S. state.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

apiary apiaries

After her mother’s death, she began working with her father, Salvador, and her uncles at the family’s apiary, where they managed more than 30 hives.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026

Visit a local apiary or beekeeper to see how bees live and work.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 5, 2024

"We are so fortunate to be able to work with the Pennsylvania beekeepers, who every year answer a survey on their management practices, their bees' winter survival and their apiary locations," Grozinger said.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 4, 2024

The farm also has an apiary operation that produces incredible honey, two rescue steers, and a smattering of laying hens.

From Salon ● May 2, 2024

The evening before he had visited Father Ferapont in his cell apart, behind the apiary, and had been greatly impressed and overawed by the visit.

From The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Finally, they experimentally infected bees from two colonies in central Pennsylvania with strains of the virus found in the Arnot Forest and the managed apiaries.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 2023

At the time of the first theft, he said he went to check on two of his apiaries and found the brood boxes, which contained the queens, were missing.

From BBC ● May 16, 2023

The plan was equally straightforward: Community-owned farms would feed everyone and fund additional industries, including apiaries, hatcheries, canneries, smithies, brickyards and even a film studio.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2023

If Popeyes is a Louisiana kitchen, with its roots in Cajun country, then Honeymoon Chicken has set up camp next to America’s apiaries.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 5, 2022

This is possibly due to the constant war they have to wage against hornets, which in this country are a real plague and frequently exterminate whole colonies and sometimes whole apiaries.

From Notes on Agriculture in Cyprus and Its Products by William Bevan

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