A swarm of honeybees followed its queen Thursday to a branch of a cherry tree outside the

at the corner of Southwest Fifth Avenue and Madison Street.

The collective drew curious humans who watched the cluster grow on the tree branch from nothing to about 2 feet long inside five minutes.

The swarm hung over the Fifth Avenue sidewalk right near the MAX stop, so low that more than one skateboarder rolling by just missed getting a face full o' bees.

Carver beekeeper Deb Wheelbarger said the bees are doing what comes naturally.

"They are trying to further the species," she said. "It's perfectly normal behavior. They're trying to increase the size of the population."

Wheelbarger explained that when a hive becomes overcrowded, the queen will produce another queen to rule the hive.

Then the old queen takes 60 percent of the hive population and leaves in search of a home.

The queen will alight somewhere and the followers form a "bee ball" around her.

This condition simplifies the task of collecting the swarm, Wheelbarger said. "I would shake them into a box, so that they would rain down into the bottom of the box, or I would clip the branch and bring them home."

The U.S. bee population is in critical condition, because of diseases such as

that have wiped out all the wild hives in the country. "The only bees around now are 'managed' bees," or bees that are tended by a keeper, Wheelbarger said.

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