Collections Online

A glass bell jar which bees would fill with honeycomb inside a bee hive. It was one of three bell glasses used in the Neighbour's Improved Cottage Hive. At the top of the bell glass is a round handle with a hole in the middle in which fitted a perforated zinc tube for ventilation, and to which guide combs could be fastened, providing a convenient support for the working bees. The cover over the bell glasses was of the same appearance and construction as a bee skep, made of staw bound with cane. According to the makers Neighbours, the bell glasses gave the owner the power of taking honey-comb of pure quality, free from the extraneous matter known as 'bee-bread' instead of combs that were darkened by having brood hatched in them. The method had newly-made combs and used only for depositing honey first put into them: hence the name 'virgin honey'.The bell glasses stood on a thick wooden base with three holes, resting on a circular lower hive made of straw bound with cane. The bees entered the lower hive through windows.

George Neighbour (1784-1865) and his two sons George(1819-79) and Alfred(1825-90) were England's leading dealers and manufacturers of apicultural appliances for much of the nineteenth century, having thriving establishments at High Holborn and Regent Street, and a large bee farm in Hampstead. They developed various hives, including the Improved Cottage Hive before 1850, and displayed at the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was popular with beekeepers throughout the middle and latter half of the century. Manufacturing of the hive ceased by the end of the century, after the advent of movable comb hives. Alfred Neighbour himself had been influential in promoting these new hives and in establishing the Standard Frame size.