Wikipedia
A beehive oven is a type of oven in use since the Middle Ages in Europe. It gets its name from its domed shape, which resembles that of an old-fashioned beehive.
Its apex of popularity occurred in the Americas and Europe all the way until the Industrial Revolution, which saw the advent of gas and electric ovens. Beehive ovens were common in households used for baking pies, cakes and meat. These ovens were also used in industry, in such applications as making tiles and pots and turning coal into coke.
Usage examples of "beehive oven".
Not all types of coal can be made into coke in an old-style beehive oven.
The beehive oven was a nine-yard dome that had a hole in the top through which the coal was loaded.
On the far side of the hot room, a boy was pulling loaves from a great beehive oven, using a long wooden paddle to keep from burning his hands.
In the back yard a black woman plied a long-handled paddle to turn baking bread in a beehive oven.
But if you asked him to be honest he'd say that he'd forgo it all to wake up one morning and walk downstairs to find Diane in front of a huge fireplace making johnnycakes in the beehive oven, then he and Jamie would go out to trap or hunt all day long among the miles and miles of forests just like this one.