Hive and Swarm

We have been watching a beehive for months. It is a classic storybook hole-in-a-tree type, and we have often stayed to watch the bees coming and going. Some days they are frantic and some days they are lazy.

Today we were lucky enough to see our favorite hive on the move, as the colony divided and a large number swarmed off to form a new hive.

Someone told me that there was an average of over one feral bee hive for every city block in Los Angeles. Can that possibly be true? (Granted, that someone was only nine years old, but it is not every day that you meet a nine-year-old with his own beekeeper suit and such a wealth of interesting facts about urban bees!)

Here is our gorgeous swarm (you can click on the picture to enlarge it):

We wonder where they will move to next!