Other forms: hives
A hive is the built home of a bee colony. A beehive, keep hives, the hive swarmed.
A managed hive holds tens of thousands of bees in removable frames, an invention of the nineteenth century that made beekeeping without destroying the colony possible. Hive mind describes collective thinking, usually critically. A hive of activity is a place where everybody is busy. Note hives, which is an unrelated word for a rash; and hive off, meaning to separate part of a business.
1nounhiveThe built home of a bee colony.
“One hive holds about fifty thousand bees.”
2nounplaceA place of busy activity.
“The kitchen was a hive of activity as the cooks prepared the wedding feast.”
hive is a bee home.
Old English hyf goes back to a root meaning a vessel or something curved. The idea is of a container rather than of bees.
Proto-Indo-European
*kuHp- — water vessel
Proto-West Germanic
*hūfi
Old English
hȳf
Middle English
hyve
English, today
hive
Built from
From Middle English hyve, from Old English hȳf, from Proto-West Germanic hūfi, from Proto-Indo-European kuHp- (“water vessel”), from kew- (“to bend, curve”). See also Dutch huif (“beehive”), Danish dialect huv (“ship’s hull”); also Latin cūpa (“tub, vat”), Ancient Greek κύπη (“gap, hole”), κύπελλον (“beaker”), Sanskrit कूप (“cave”). a doublet of coupe and cup and keeve. The computing term was chosen as an in-joke relating to bees; see [https://web.archive.org/web/20150715222122/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/08/54618.aspx this] for more.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Insects & Sea Life