What is the origin of the phrase "hive of activity?"

[OriginHunter]

Hi there,
I want to know the Origin and oldest printed record of the phrase "hive of activity?"

Many thanks.
Juniper

 

[probus]

The Corpus of Contemporary American English lists 39 occurrences of "hive of activity". I can't enlighten you as to first usage, but surely the implicit reference to a beehive should be obvious. In the Enlish language beehives have long symbolized ceaseless, intensive and unselfish work.

 

[jutfrank]

I take it you've already done considerable investigation into this. You might save us some time and tell us where you've looked and what you've found so far.

And why this particular phrase?

 

[Bilingo]

It's definitely from bees in a beehive. Bees are often described as "busy" in English. "busy as a bee" is another phrase.

 

[Tdol]

Here are the results over time In Google Ngrams.

 

[emsr2d2]

According to this website, the first recorded use was in 1863. I found that easily by Googling (without the quotation marks) "etymology of hive of activity". You could have done the same.