“Hello! Nice macro lens you’ve got there. I understand you’re looking to take photographs of bees? Perhaps I can help with this! Because I, after all, am a bee myself.”

“See? I am yellow with black stripes, I have big eyes, and I go bzzzzzzz when I fly. I am absolutely, positively, 100%, a bee since the day I was born. Which was in a hive, obviously. Or am I a wasp? Okay, possibly I’m a wasp. But I’m definitely one of the two!”

“Look at my shape! Look at those colours! I could absolutely sting you if I wanted to, you know. That’s what all the bzzzzzing is for. To warn you. Because I can sting people. Yeah, whatever I am, I can definitely do the stinging thing.”

“ALL RIGHT FINE FINE I’m a hoverfly. Are you happy now? Are you satisfied? I hope you are. I am a member of the genus Syrphidae, where we have spent millions of years learning to look exactly like bees and wasps. We have all the colours! We have all the style! We even go bzzzzz! And yet, you’re only taking pictures of me because you couldn’t find a bee. Oh don’t even try to defend yourself. I don’t want to hear it. Go and find your bee, if it means that much to you.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what that was all about, but I’m not a bee either. Also this is a rather unflattering angle. Try the next plant?”

“Bzzzzzzzz.”