mother-hive

plural mother-hives · alternative mother hive

1. the principal or source hive of a colony of bees

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

   1909, Arthur Wade-Evans, Welsh Medieval Law

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

   [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.

   1882, Walt Whitman, Specimen Days