no actual board, however it can be thought of as being played on an infinite plane of tessellated hexagons. A major rule in Hive is the One-Hive Rule; a piece may never be moved such that during or after its movement, there are two separate groups of pieces in play. Even if as a result of the piece's move, the layout remains one group, if the hive becomes disconnected while the piece is in transit the move is illegal. This allows for the basic strategy of "trapping" an opposing piece or pieces by moving one's own piece to the outside of the opposing piece; the opposing piece then cannot legally move because the trapping piece would be stranded. With two exceptions, moves are made around the circumference of all pieces of the layout, and a piece may never move into or out of a hex that is almost completely or completely surrounded (known as the Freedom to Move Rule). The two exceptions to both are noted below. The movement of the pieces is as follows (number in parentheses indicates number of each piece type per player): The Queen Bee (1) is the most limited in movement; she can only move one space at a time in any direction. Although restricted, a well-timed movement of the Queen can avoid her being trapped and frustrate an opponent's plans. The Beetle (2), like the Bee, can move only one space at a time. However, unlike the Bee, a Beetle can also climb on top of any adjacent piece, and then if the player so wishes can move one space at a time over the top of the layout. The piece under the Beetle cannot move as long as the Beetle remains on top, and for the purpose of placing new tiles, that space is the color of the Beetle's tile, not the underlying tile. Beetles can move on top of other Beetles even when that Beetle is atop another piece; theoretically a stack 5 tiles high can be constructed, with all four Beetles atop some other tile. A Beetle on top of the layout can crawl back down onto the edge of the board, or into any surrounded space. Beetles have an important but rarely-seen movement restriction, a variation of the Freedom to Move Rule; a Beetle may not move directly between two adjacent hexes if doing so would require passing through a