Before the movable-frame hive was patented in 1852, beekeepers across the world housed bees in whatever local material offered a dry, defensible cavity: a hollowed-out log (the "gum" or "bee gum" of the American South and European "Klotzbeute"), a coiled straw skep woven like a basket, a fired clay vessel laid on its side as used around the Mediterranean and Middle East, or a rolled sheet of tree bark lashed into a tube. This 2D companion strips the scene down to a flat cutaway diagram so the thermal model — the actual physics driving the 3D version — is the whole picture.
Skeps had no internal frames, so harvesting honey traditionally meant destroying the colony — a major reason Lorenzo Langstroth's 1852 movable-frame design, which let beekeepers inspect and re-use the hive, spread so quickly once bee space was understood.
A 2D cutaway thermal model of the vernacular hives beekeepers used before the movable frame — hollow log gums, coiled straw skeps, fired clay vessels and rolled bark tubes — showing live how material and wall thickness buffer the bee cluster against outside temperature.
Each hive material conducts heat at a different rate. Thicker, more insulating walls (timber, straw) slow how fast the inside temperature follows the outside air, while thin fired clay tracks it closely — visible directly in the heat-flow arrows and the live temperature trace.
Pick a hive type, adjust wall thickness and outside temperature, and watch the inside temperature, heat flux and cluster comfort respond. Turn on the day/night cycle to see the thermal lag build up over a compressed 24-hour sweep.
Straw skeps had no removable frames, so traditional harvest often meant destroying the colony — one reason Langstroth's 1852 movable-frame hive, once "bee space" was understood, replaced these vernacular designs so fast in commercial beekeeping.