On September 18, 1870 the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition entered the Upper Geyser Basin along the Firehole River.

The following is Langford's description of the Beehive in his 1871 account of the expedition: A hundred yards distant from The Giantess was a silicious cone, very symmetrical but slightly corrugated upon its exterior surface, three feet in height and five feet in diameter at its base, and having an oval orifice twentyfour [sic] by thirty-six and one-half inches in diameter, with scalloped edges.

While we were at breakfast upon the morning of our departure a column of water, entirely filling the crater, shot from it, which, by accurate triangular measurement, we found to be two hundred and nineteen feet in height.

The stream did not deflect more than four or five degrees from a vertical line, and the eruption lasted eighteen minutes.

The fountain maintains its full height for the duration of the eruption, dropping just slightly near the end.