mother-hive

mother-hive

See also: mother hive

English

Alternative forms

• mother hive

Noun

mother-hive (plural mother-hives)

1. the principal or source hive of a colony of bees
   • 1909, Arthur Wade-Evans, Welsh Medieval Law:

     A mother-hive of bees is 24 pence in value.

2. (idiomatic) a location similarly serving as the source of a group of people
   • 1882, Walt Whitman, Specimen Days

     [John Whitman] came over in the True Love in 1640 to America and lived in Weymouth, Mass., which place became the mother-hive of the New Englanders of the name.

Translations

Translations

German: Leibbiene