What are these bees doing?

Question

A wall which I climb over frequently used to have a beehive in it. Then they sealed up the holes. This was a couple of years ago. Now the bees are back, http://i537.photobucket.com/albums/ff331/michaelnestor/Bees.jpg

and have been clustering like this for weeks in a hollow in the wall. What are they doing?

Answer 1

What does it LOOK like they're doing???

They're re-creating their hive. It was destroyed when the filled the holes and now that it has become available again, they are back.

Why would the use a wall to make a hive? It's safe, protected, and probably near resources.

If I were you, I'd stay FAR away from their hive. If they ever percieve you as threatening to their queen, they could kill you.

Answer 2

Somewhere in the middle of that swarm there should be a queen.

It is likely part of a hive that split up.

They do that every so often.

About half the bees fly off with the new queen and find a new place to live and about half stay in the old hive with the old queen.

That hive will never survive winter there.

If you phone a local bee keeper they might be interested (but not usually) or if you had access to a set of bee boxes you could likely convince them to move into them.

I suggest calling a local beekeeper.