I could hear my son’s enthusiastic voice coming from somewhere near the front. He had managed to squeeze through the crowd so he could see, while I stood at the back trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on. There were about a hundred of us gathered around a demonstration beehive in the University of Bristol’s Botanic Garden, listening to the beekeeper talk about maintaining beehives. He’d just pulled out a frame from the hive that was absolutely writhing. We all stepped in for a closer look, and despite having no fear of bees, I have to admit that I was grateful for the mist net that separated us. After all, 15,000 is a lot of bees!