When I started buying and selling glass I was so ignorant! Knew nothing about anything and it was luck more than skill that kept me from losing my shirt. Anyway, one early purchase (bought 1 month after deciding Yes! I can do this!) was a set of two odd-shaped, deep clear bowls with rows of short vertical ribs. The garage sale listed it as “depression glass” so why not? I bought it, waited eagerly for my new depression glass book to arrive from Barnes and Noble. Nope, not in the book.
It took me a few years to identify this, and then I found it in a 1970 paper bound book from Sandra McPhee Stout that our library got for me from somewhere. It is Beehive from Hazel Atlas.
Both my bowls were crystal, and I’ve seen a few pieces in milk glass, which Hazel Atlas called Platonite, and I think a piece or two in pink. It isn’t terribly common; the Platonite creamer and sugar seem the easiest to find.
Hazel Atlas called my bowls, which are 5 inches across and over 2 1/2 inches deep, “utility bowls”. They would make nice serving dishes for foods that do not need full-size serving bowls. They seem too odd to be good for cereal or soup.
Not only did I not know what these were, I also did not notice that the rims are easy to nick if stacked. One bowl had a teeny nick on the inside of the rim.
Hazel Atlas made Beehive from 1940 to 1955 in crystal, thus it’s not truly depression glass. Gene Florence lists it in his last book on glassware from the 1940s although I don’t think he notes all the pieces.
Beehive is another pattern which offered an unusual set of items. There is a small bowl, cup, sherbet, and tumbler, but no lunch or dinner plates or saucers. There is a butter dish, two sizes of sandwich plates, and 8 1/2 inch serving bowl, cake plate with matching dome, plus the creamer and sugar, that one could use as serving pieces.
The cake plate with cover is a particularly nice piece that might have been made in crystal only. I think the only Platonite pieces are the creamer and sugar.
Anchor Hocking made a pitcher and footed tumbler that are good go-with pieces. These have the same rows of short vertical ribs except there are multiple horizontal grooves between the vertical rows.
eBay today has several Beehive pieces listed – and likely others that are not identified – in crystal, and a couple Platonite creamers and sugars. You can likely get most pieces online. I noticed several listings for salt and pepper shakers that sellers called “Beehive”. These lack the rows of vertical ribs but do have concentric horizontal ribs and would make nice go-withs. This is the shaker I had in one of those same styles. It was marked HA for Hazel Atlas.
