apiary

American  

[ey-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

Etymology

Origin of apiary

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

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

Gray said she hopes the findings will be useful to beekeepers while planning their apiary management strategies, as well as be a springboard for future studies.

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

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

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2023

The beekeeper, who lived close by the apiary, used to bring him the bread every three days, and even to this man who waited upon him, Father Ferapont rarely uttered a word.

From The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

In apiaries, entire colonies can be wiped out by mite infestation and the associated viral infections within two to three years without proper human intervention.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 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

He spends most of his days tending eight apiaries around Los Angeles, but he doesn’t sell honey.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2021

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

Take some refuse honey and your bottle of bait, get far out on the mountains, so there will be little danger of drawing bees from apiaries that may be situated in the valleys.

From Bee Hunting A Book of Valuable Information for Bee Hunters - Tell How to Line Bees to Trees, Etc. by Lockard, John Ready