[Python] How to arbitrarily nest some data in a django rest framework serializer

An existing client is already sending data in a structure like…

{
"hive_metadata": {"name": "hive name"},
"bees": [{"name": "bee 1", "name": "bee 2", ...}]
}


For models like:

class Hive(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=32, help_text="name")


class Bee(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=32, help_text="name")
hive = models.ForeignKey(
Hive, help_text="The Hive associated with this Bee", on_delete=models.CASCADE
)


The code that makes this possible manually iterates over the incoming data. I would like to rewrite it using a django rest framework serializer; however, the fact that hive_metadata is nested itself has stumped me so far.

If I write

class BeesSerializer(ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = models.Bee
fields = ("name",)

class PopulatedHiveSerializer(ModelSerializer):
bees = BeesSerializer(many=True, source="bee_set")
class Meta:
model = models.Hive
fields = ("name","bees",)


would produce

{
"name": "hive name",
"bees": [{"name": "bee 1", "name": "bee 2", ...}]
}


readily enough. I had hoped I could solve it with a reference to a sub-serializer, something like

class HiveMetaDataSerializer(ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = models.Hive
fields = ("name",)

class PopulatedHiveSerializer(ModelSerializer):
bees = BeesSerializer(many=True, source="bee_set")
hive_metadata = HiveMetaDataSerializer(source=???)
class Meta:
model = models.Hive
fields = ("hive_metadata","bees",)


but I can't seem to figure out what to put in the "source" so that the same object is passed through the outer serializer into the inner.

So, is there a way to do this using a django rest framework serializer?

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