> Is that real? Why would the bees create such an art work instead of
parallel comb?

The combs ARE parallel, they simply are not straight!  :)

The bees in this case seem to have been presented with an empty box, fitted
with a heart-shaped form, likely made of cardboard, taped to the outer cover

When the bees had drawn the comb inside the heart-shaped form, it was
removed, to allow the bees to connect the combs inside and outside the form,
as the beekeeper in this case was trying hard to make this look "natural".
In the much less contrived setting of someone deploying jar-type feeders
atop the top bars, placing an empty box around them, and then forgetting to
remove them, the bees will do something similar, and attach the comb to the
feeder jars.  

Similarly, if an inner cover is used above an empty box, the bees will build
comb around the porter-bee-escape shaped hole, and that will also prompt a
curved comb pattern.

So, the beekeeper here was using some patient sleight of hand trying to
convince others that his or her bees "love" them,  or some such sentimental
nonsense.

One can also hear these same sort of people, often redolent of patchouli
oil, speaking of "Heart-Shaped" Swarms and partly-drawn Combs.
The bees do not "love" us, despite what various charlatans will say to the
uninitiated. Bees just naturally form those shapes because they hang in a
shape called a "catenary curve" but because they have support from the frame
topbar or the branch, the curve develops a sharper point than a bridge cable
would. How romantic!

There's lots of fun to be had from understanding how the bees react to this
or that. I would often take a fully capped-over honey comb, and carefully
uncap cells with a penknife to spell out the name of a visitor who would be
arriving in a few days.  The bees would re-cap the cells, and the
newly-capped cells would stand out from the rest.  Then the comb would be
removed by the visitor from the hive, in what was often their first
encounter with a beehive.  Upon seeing their own name, the visitor would
express surprise, and I would say that "the bees always do that, they
eavesdrop on everything, and heard you were coming".  When asked "but
how?..." I would look the visitor straight in the eye and deadpan:

"Well, these are SPELLING bees, of course!"

That one never gets old.

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