After the end of the Spanish Civil War, General Antonio Escobar Huerta stoically awaits his execution, accused of military treason and sentenced to death for having sworn allegiance to the Republic. Despite being a man of deep religious convictions, Antonio Escobar decided to make an oath honoring the legally constituted government of the Second Spanish Republic against the military uprising led by Francisco Franco and supported by the Catholic Church. While waiting for his execution in prison, he recalls the beginning of the Civil War, the years of battles during which he ascended to the rank of General, and his own decisions, of which he has no regrets. With a clear conscience, Escobar waits his own execution with the calm of those who know they have done their duty. "If my life and that of all who have fallen serves to avoid this from happening again, our blood will not have been in vain" - Antonio Escobar Huerta.

Carmen leaves her husband Julio to go live with an intellectual who has made a career in the United States. While, Julio goes away to live of rent to house of an aristocrat come to less. After meeting several colorful characters, Julio decides to recover Carmen.

In 1913 a family of traveling musicians goes to the house of a rich marquise. Lolita, daughter of one of the musicians, encounters the son of the wealthy lady.

As in the novel of the same title from Camilo Jose Cela, "La Colmena" is a sad composition with the stories of many people in the Madrid of 1942, just the postwar of the spanish civil war. The main theme of the film is the contrast between the poets, surviving close to misery under the Franco's regime, and the winners of the war, the emerging class of the people that makes easy money with illegal business.

Two men, father and son, meet Carmen la Martillo, a regular at the soirees organized in the evenings of flamenco. The contact with this woman will altere their lives, especially when one death cames to scene and nobody knows where it came from.

Two unmarried siblings live together without problems until the day a friend leaves her baby in their apartment because she does not have time to take care of him.

An Argentine travels to Spain to begin his studies. During the flight, he causes so much troubles to a flight attendant that she is fired. At home, the ex flight attendant discovers some dresses that belonged to her grandmother and decides to try her luck with an artist representative. There she will find the guy who caused his dismissal. Both fail to act in Barcelona, ​​but the boy's father attended the performance, being surprised, because he believed his son was studying in Madrid.