PETER Longbottom of the Wharfedale Bee Keepers Association knew straight away what last week's Craven Curiosity was - a skep, a traditional beehive, made from straw or wicker, and traditionally before the moveable frame hive was invented. "The illustration is designed to hold the queen and honeybee's brood nest. The hole in the top is there for worker bees to have access to a smaller skep placed above and into which excess honey was stored," he tells me. David Henderson took a stab, and guessed it was something to do with beekeeping, as he could remember a neighbour having something similar, in his distant youth. Better that, than his other suggestion - some sort of ancient Craven ceremonial headdress.

Collections assistant at Craven Museum and Gallery, where the skep is on show, Bryan Morgan, tells us the skep would have been use in the early 1900s, and the design in use for a suspected 2,000 years.

"Bees would enter the hive through the flat funnel at the bottom. An additional domed basket is placed on top to make a cone shape, which forms an enclosed structure suitable for bees to produce honey. Straw skeps have been used since the middle ages, having previously been made from stone and mud. Over the last 200 years more complex skeps have been introduced using glass and other artificial materials. The word skep comes from skeppa which is old Norse for basket. There has been evidence of beekeeping discovered in Ancient Egypt, with the walls of the Egyptian sun temple Nyuserre Ini depicting workers blowing smoke into hives to retrieve honeycombs and the tomb of Ancient Egyptian nobleman Pabasa contained instructions on the production of honey. The oldest beehives in the world, which were around 3,000 years old, were found in the Jordan Valley in Israel."

Suggestions for this week's curiosity, should be sent before 8am on Monday to lesley.tate@cravenherald.co.uk