thumb|Village of beehive houses in [[Harran, Turkey.]]
A beehive house is a building made from a circle of stones or mud topped with a cone-shaped roof. The name comes from the similarity in shape to a straw beehive.
Occurrences
The ancient Bantu used this type of house, which was made with mud, poles, and cow dung. Early European settlers in the Karoo region of South Africa built similar structures known as corbelled houses. These white-washed structures are described as coursed rubble on a circular plan, with each successive course smaller and slightly corbelled over the course below so that a conical shape is achieved as each course is completed.
Beehive houses are some of the oldest known structures in Ireland and Scotland,. Beehive houses have also been built in the Italian Peninsula, with some still being built as late as the 19th century in Apulia (south-eastern Italy). and going by the name of trulli.
Gallery
<gallery>
File:Harran2.jpg|Another view of beehive houses in Harran.
File:Ifpo 22650 Syrie, gouvernorat d'Alep, maisons traditionnelles pain de sucre dans un village de la région d'Alep, vue aérienne oblique (cropped).jpg|Village of beehive houses near Aleppo, Syria, in 1927
File:Alberobello BW 2016-10-16 13-43-03.jpg|Row of trullo beehive houses in Monte Pertica street in Alberobello, Bari Province, Italy.
</gallery>
See also
- Beehive tomb
- Clochán, Irish stone huts, often beehive shaped
- Musgum mud huts, huts of the Musgum people in Cameroon
- Nuraghe, large, round, neolithic, stone structures in Sardinia
- Trullo, a southern Italian and northern Israel type of beehive house
- Dovecote also called doocot (Scots), buildings to house doves, some are beehive shaped, stone structures