> the mass of the tree trunk?)

>> yes ... anthropogenic  hive it would be 20kg to 50kg. 

Wait, what? 40 to 110 lbs of wood surrounding a feral hive?  

That's a bit heavy, by at least a factor of 2 for all but the very largest oaks.  I've "rescued" quite a few hives from storm-broken trees, so I have first-hand hands-on-chainsaw experience on this.  Sometimes, a bow saw is faster.

I won't claim "more tree hives found than anyone else", but I've found quite a few, (enough that I taught others the rapid-acquisition approach of "triangulation", and designed a 3-chamber bee-lining box to allow one to capture multiple bees from one stand of flowers, and release them singly after they had tanked up on the integrated feeding sponge).

40 lbs of wood, sure I'll buy that as a decent mid to high end of the mass of wood surrounding a typical east-coast USA feral hive in the NC/VA/MD Blue Ridge Mountains.  But 100?  Don't think I've ever seen one, in the 30+ years since I last did an honest day's work, and could play around with bees instead.

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