Meanings of vast beehive in английском

These last were the workers of this vast beehive; the others were the drones, the parasites.

The legislature had convened some six weeks before, and the building was humming like a vast beehive.

Beyond, groups of islands rose above the liquid plain, so numerous and close together as to resemble a vast beehive.

Evelyn Waugh complained about the appearance of "villas like sewage farms, mansions like half-submerged Channel steamers, offices like vast beehives".