Aaron collects these things, so if he disagrees on any point, I'll defer to
him.  (Aaron?  Thoughts?)

What you have there is a well thought-out approach as compared to most I've
seen.  I'll make a stab at what I think the designer/builder was thinking:

1)  The slide is opened, to allow the bee to enter
2)  The unit is lowered over a flower with a foraging bee upon it.  
3)  The hole in the side is left uncovered, to allow light to enter, as bees
in dark tend to move toward the light
4)  The slide is then closed, trapping the bee.
5)  The hole is then covered with a thumb, or maybe plugged with a cork or
something to put the bee into darkness.  
6)  Later, the box is set down, the bee-liner gets low to the ground to see
the bee against the sky,  and the bee is released by unscrewing the brass
fitting

The brass fitting is complex because it was a found item, a bit of otherwise
useless junk.  The art of beekeeping is often the art of making do with
whatever happens to be lying around at the moment, so the bee-lining box was
assembled from a "found" round wooden box, and a "found" brass fitting.

What the unit lacks:

a)  A much larger light-admitting panel, as one can never had too much
light.
b)  Somewhere for a sponge soaked in sugar water to let bees really tank up,
as only a "full" bee flies for home, while half-full bees fly toward more
forage. 
c)  A way to keep the light-admitting panel covered without needing your
thumb to do it (a cork)
d)  A way to capture more than one bee without taking a chance of releasing
the bee caught (3 chambers is the minimum here)
e)  A way to release one bee at a time without taking a chance of releasing
the bees caught (again, the number is 3)
f)   A way to keep bees from moving "backwards" from the holding area to the
capture area and getting out 

I think that people are far smarter than we think, and that one only finds
the failed prototypes.  I think that many people read a book such as "The
Oak Openings" by James Fennimore Cooper, the last of the "Leatherstocking
Tales" ("The Pathfinder", "The Deerslayer", "The Last of the Mohicans" and
so on), and read the adventures of Natty Bumppo, a guy hardened and skilled
in hand-to-hand combat from attending an east coast prep school bearing a
name like "Natty Bumppo".

They then went out to the workshop, and built a bee-lining box, convinced
that they could find a bee tree, and some honey, or a free bee gum.  The
initial prototype was complete garbage, as most initial prototypes are, even
including "Apollo 1".  So, it was tested, found lacking, set on a shelf, and
a better unit was made, which was actually useful.  The better unit was
well-loved and well-used to the point of falling apart, while the bad design
sat on a workshop shelf, gathered dust, and was given to the grandchildren
by the children, who remembered the bee-lining, but did not know one box
from another.  The mostly useless design is thereby lovingly preserved as
"great-granddad's bee-lining box".

If only these guys had written more stuff down.  But bee-lining is a
solitary sport for solitary guys and girls, so the natural anti-social
nature of most beekeepers is likely several times stronger for the beekeeper
who learns to line bees.

I designed, and my dad manufactures his massively re-designed version of,
the only modern bee-lining box sold... anywhere.
It makes a great Christmas gift, but order (send an email) quickly, as
Fischer the Elder has a knee replacement scheduled for Dec 16th, and likely
won't be in his woodshop very much in January.

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