The city is a marvel to behold, the maze of streets, lanes, and boulevards reveal a plethora of structures – old, new, preserved, decaying, desirable, desiccated – they span the imaginary of its inhabitants. The analogy between the human form (urban metropolis) and the non-human form (bee hove) is explored through the collocation of these structures. Both systems share certain obvious and parallel moorings, paramount among these being the predominance of social order. Ideally social order confirms cohesion, continuity and abundance, but as is often happens, our most well structured intentions leave room for speculation and contradiction – conformity and membership are linked to imitation and distinction, to adaptation and departure, to equalization and to differentiation. The fecundity of possibilities is myriad, but nature, on the other hand can be remorseless.