In this week’s Photo of the Week, the world feels suddenly small in the best way possible.

At first glance, you might read the image as a rough-edged tunnel carved into earth. Look closer and a whole society appears. Tiny stingless bees cluster at the mouth of their home, their bodies forming a living gate. The entrance itself looks hand-built, shaped from wax, resin, and mud into a neat, tube-like passage. The scene carries the tension of a threshold: inside is warmth, brood, food stores, a kingdom; outside is weather, predators, and chance.

The photograph is titled ‘Guardians of the Hive’, and it has just won Young Close-up Photographer of the Year at Close-up Photographer of........

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