There are times when it's useful to create an empty space in the column of boxes that form the hive. For example, we may wish some room at the top so that a feeding bucket can be enclosed, some room at the bottom to provide clustering space for adult bees away from the brood nest, or perhaps some room beneath a clearing board for bees leaving the supers above. The simplest thing to do would be to place an empty hive body in the stack, a super would do, but these are often in short supply, and could be deeper than we need. In the 16c and 17c the old English word 'eac', literally 'also', was used as 'eke', meaning to supplement, to make up the deficiencies of anything, or to make resources last the required time by additions or by partial use of a substitute. By making a simple 'collar' out of whatever was to hand, to use to provide the room needed, beekeepers turned the verb into a noun and now use an eke to create empty space in the hive.