BEE HIVE CAKE

So , I had a friend that was having a birthday party for her daughter and wanted a bumble bee cake.  So I looked on the internet for some photos of some bee hive cakes.   I found a couple, showed them to her and we came up with this one.    Here is how I made this cake :
   10" rd cake
     9" rd cake
     8" rd cake
     6" rd cake 
I stacked the 10" and 9 " together , then put columns in those for support for the 8" and the 6" cake.  I shaped the edges of each cake layer to form the look of the bee hive.  Iced the cake with buttercream frosting... she didnt want fondant so had to make it look as close as even as I could being , but some of the texture I left because I thought it gave it good depth.    Then I airbrushed (started with yellow, then adding a little orange , layer affect ) and then ended w/brown around each layer to give the affect of the edges.  

Before I airbrushed I did cut the hole at the bottom into the 10" rd cake layer, not to deep in. Maybe an inch in.  Then sprayed that w./black .

Bees - loved making these.   All out of fondant.  I do add a little lemon extract to the fondant to give it a little flavor.  ( I will be trying to make my own fondant soon.  Will let you know how that turns out and if it taste much better and hopefully cheaper) ... 
    Need:   Yellow fondant, black fondant (which I had blue fondant and just added black food coloring to it and let it sit and dry a bit until I used it) .. 
     Bee Body:  I formed the yellow fondant into some round balls.  Also , added the smile to the yellow before it dried.  
      Let the yellow dry a couple of days. 
      Bee stripes and eyes: Took the black fondant and cut for stripes.   w/ little water added to the yellow (2each) and also added eyes.   Let those dry over night.
   Wings : (white fondant)  took a flower cutter , daisy, cut out several and used each petal (cut each out) and put each on the back .. found that this was the easiest to make sure each were same size and looked the same.  Very easy to do.
    W/ royal icing , placed 2 wings on the top of each bee , held for a few seconds and let to dry over night.   
   When I was placing them on the cake , they were still soft so I was able to put a toothpick through the bottom so that I could place them on the cake so they looked like they were flying.

I then had some daisy fondant flowers , placed around bottom as a boarder and around the cake for final decorations.  
 

Final outcome: