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

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

A team from the University of Edinburgh made the discovery by studying a colony of honeybees at an apiary at the University and using computational models to mimic their brain processes.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2024

When we visited his apiary we saw several Asian hornets that had been captured that day.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2023

I find the best pollinators are a good apiary of bees.

From The Apple by Various

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

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

To provide the honey for his range of meads Mr Cooper is also a professional beekeeper, who looks after more than 500 hives at 50 different locations or apiaries across Wales.

From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2021

When the researchers placed buffets of animal dung near several apiaries, bees harvested clumps of it, dabbing their nests in carefully mounded lumps, each roughly the size of a sesame or poppy seed.

From New York Times ● Dec. 9, 2020

As soon as this was completed, he began making fifty additional concrete apiaries.

From Hidden Treasure by John Thomas Simpson

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