A single structure, tens of thousands of residents, one shared purpose
Worker bees build comb from wax secreted by glands on their own abdomen, shaping it into hexagonal cells. The hexagon is the most material efficient shape for tiling a flat surface with no gaps, giving the colony maximum storage for the least wax, a genuine feat of natural engineering.
A healthy hive contains one queen, whose sole job is egg laying, tens of thousands of female worker bees, who forage, nurse, build comb, and defend the hive, and, during the warmer months, a smaller number of male drones, whose only role is to mate with a queen from another colony.
A worker bee's job changes as she ages, cleaning cells and nursing larvae in her first weeks, then building comb and receiving nectar, then guarding the entrance, and finally, in the last weeks of her roughly six week working life, foraging outside the hive.
Inside a hive with almost no light, bees communicate chemically, through pheromones released by the queen and workers, and physically, through the waggle dance, a figure eight movement first decoded by Karl von Frisch, which tells other foragers the direction and distance of a good food source relative to the sun.
Workers actively regulate the hive's internal temperature to within roughly one or two degrees of 35 degrees Celsius, fanning their wings to cool it in summer and clustering, vibrating their flight muscles to generate heat, in winter.