Bees are not looking for food when they swarm and settle like that. In fact, they gorge themselves with honey just before they swarm. That clump is just a resting spot while they look for a new hive. I had a bee hive next to my house which swarmed twice a year and they clumped in all kinds of spots, usually pretty close to the house. Sometimes they just clump in a really dumb location.
They are very calm in a clump, and you can lean right in and watch them. Bees scout new hive locations and they return to the clump and do their bee dance. Within 24 hours, they fly to the new location. Very cool!
I was
beeing sarcastic, with reefer humor.
We had a colony of wild honey bees settle and start a very large wax hive on the steel frame of a boat trailer about 3 years ago.
At first we thought they were just regular bees, until our dog had a few stings on his snout and was caught chewing on a big piece of sand covered honeycomb!
As you pointed out, I was able to get exceptionally close, and easily spot the queen and where she was laying eggs, and where the workers were sealing the eggs and food/honey for storage.
I went the next midday and talked to an elderly local family friend who'd been a beekeeper for 60 yrs for advice on how to coax them into a proper hive.
He is a walking library of bee related information, and was really helpful and generous with his knowledge.
Unfortunately, the very day I talked with him turned out to
bee the hottest day that summer, with temps of 103f plus high humidity, and he'd told me they need a very close cool water source to dip into and return to their hive then shake the water onto the area to keep the temperature regulated; sadly, by the time I got home and brought a 5 gal bucket of cool water to their location, much of the wax had melted while I was gone and they'd abandoned the spot for a cooler location.
He told me they'll probably return again although perhaps not the exact same hive, as our property is covered with gallberry bushes, sassafras, blackberries and huckleberries, all of which attract bees, but that gallberry is one of their favorites, and a very popular selling honey for it's distinctive flavor - and we tend to leave tall broken, hollow trees alone for cavity breeding birds and bats, which also attracts bees.
My brother also did beekeeping for several years, until he kept losing his bees to wasp infestations, and there's no way to spray or dust to prevent wasps that doesn't also kill the bees.
They are indeed very cool creatures, and along with bats, are vital to our farmers and wild flora for the cross-pollination that most crops and plants depend on to grow and reproduce.
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