Golden Bees

I didn't know until today that Napoleon adopted the bee as a symbol. But his coronation robe was covered in them, as are many items in the exhibition "Napoleon: Revolution to Empire" at the National Gallery of Victoria that I visited today. Here's the bee on the water-window at the gallery:

Not far from the gallery, at the base of the Eureka Tower, is this sculpture:

"The Queen Bee" by Richard Stringer. Yesterday was the first time I had ever seen it, but the internet tells me that it has been there since 2007!

In other bee news this week, one of the hives swarmed on Tuesday. That wasn't meant to happen; there are enough bee hives around here! Our first warm spring day, and they took off. We could have just let them go, but they settled in a neighbour's lemon tree. After work I helped collect them, but although I had my camera in a pocket of my bee suit I got caught up in the action and forgot to take any pictures. I hope none of the other hives decide to do the same.