I have been keeping bees for a number of years. I love the noise they make. When I open a hive the sound stays the same – but if I take anyone else to see them, the pitch goes right up because they are immediately aware that a stranger is present. Your bees get to know you personally, they really do.

I am running my next bee-keeping course when restrictions are lifted.

It all started when a friend of mine wanted to give my husband James a beehive for his 50th birthday. I was really excited, but he was not very keen. I struck a deal with him that if I went on a beekeeping course, we could accept the gift.

It was during the first morning of the course, when we opened a hive, that I had a sense of being chosen. The bees seemed to speak to me. Other participants reacted differently - one man felt repulsed by the flying bees, another had a panic attack - but few of us knew: that we had been chosen to keep bees.

The hive duely arrived and, after a summer of sun, I had enough bees to split the colony in half and create two colonies.

When the hive becomes crowded the bee colony makes a plan to solve the problem - often by producing another queen and ejecting the old queen and her supporters. Instead of letting this happen, I intervened by talking the new queen bee out of the hive before hatching, as well as some bees.

Once the hive realises that they have lost their new queen, they either try again or settle down when they realise that they have more space. I continued this process of splitting the colonies until I found myself with eight hives. I feel that eight is the maximum number of hives I could to take care of.

They are amazing pollinators. I have watched my garden thrive. Every bush is covered with bees when the sun is shining. When the temperature is under 12 degrees, they tend not to fly.

A new queen has to mate with a drone, a male honey bee, to enable her to make a brood. She does this by going out on a flight, flying as high as she can and releasing pheromones as she goes. The male bees then chase her into the sky. The strongest most virile male catches the queen, unfortunately losing his life as a result. All for a good cause: the health of the hive. The queen then returns with his sperm to fertilise the foetus bees and the cycle begins again.

Beekeeping is such a useful tool for alleviating poverty internationally while helping to maintain biodiversity. I work with the specialist international beekeeping organisation Bees for Development who promote sustainable beekeeping to combat poverty in underdeveloped countries to build sustainable and resilient livelihoods.