The beehive family of glass has two distinct components.

One is a whole piece, such as a lamp base, lampshade, or doorknob shaped in a distinctive beehive style. If you look at these pieces, some are blown and others fashioned using molds, but both bear the external appearance of an oval beehive with the wave-like layers going from small at both ends to widest in the middle.

The second family of beehive glass is not actually a product, as much as it’s a style of making stained glass so it appears like a beehive slice. For the purpose of collecting, both offer investment potential. However, for vintage pieces stained glass is more difficult to store and display.

Beehive glass knobs will make a nice addition to your glass collection and can also be used to adorn doors or cabinetry in your home.

Beehives knobs and lamp parts come in crystal, pink, green and white and are categorized as late period Depression glass.

Knobs in green and clear seem the most abundant, and were formed from silica glass recipes. Note that you may not find these just laying around in junk drawers, but rather adorning all manner of cabinetry, doors, and other parts of vintage furniture. This feature often helps furniture collectors date their finds!

Looking specifically to lamps, the beehive family touted six produced by the Aladdin line. For whatever reason, they didn’t produce many of these, which of course endears them more to collectors.

If you find one in moonstone or ruby (this is so dark it may even seem black) you’ve got a huge rarity. When shopping for these, note that many have gold leaf, brass and or/ceramic bases and stands, stand around 20 inches tall, and always watch for glass bubble flaws that mark it as a period piece.