mother-hive

Alternative forms

• mother hive

Noun

mother-hive (plural mother-hives)

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

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

2. a location similarly serving as the source of a group of people
   • 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.