When thousands of bees invaded his garden, John Humphrys was terrified – but then he learned to love them
This autumn, I was in my kitchen when I heard the noise: a bit like a jet aircraft flying just a little too low for comfort. So I opened the doors and stepped into the garden – and then very swiftly stepped back into the kitchen. I could barely see to the end of my garden for the great swarm of insects buzzing around. Honey bees. Many thousands of them. They seemed to have no obvious purpose – apart from scaring the pants off me, which they were achieving most efficiently. Then I realised they weren’t remotely interested in me. The centre of their activity was my tall hawthorn tree. High up on one large branch hung two clusters. Each was about the size of a small bag of potatoes and, I was about to learn, each was a solid mass of bees. I also learned later there would have...
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