How long does it take bees to build a beehive?

Image by madmiked
A 2 minute image taken from Oyster Bay of the Beehive cluster with Saturn. The shot was taken with my Konica camera and zoom lens with Kodak Elite Chrome 200 slide film. The lens was at 200mm focal length and the shutter at f/4.5. The slide was scanned and then processed in Photoshop. The color levels and curves were adjusted. There are some internal reflections, probably created when I scanned the slide, caused by Saturn.

Question by Pook: How long does it take bees to build a beehive?
We just found a huge beehive on our deck (over a foot long, sort of a cone shape). There’s at least a couple hundred bees out there. I’m wondering how fast they could have built it – I don’t even remember seeing it there a few days ago!

What do you think? Answer below!