A friend sent me this amazing photograph of a swarm of bees, hence the title.

The idea for these began with a 19th-century engraving of a similar shaped object covered in all sorts of flotsam and jetsam. My ‘translator’ Anna Wales, worked out an amazing method of attaching the gold curls and diamond beads to a central silver armature. A still photograph does not show how the diamonds glint and glimmer, but they do. White gold mussel shells hang from the bottom.

Approximately 4 cm long.

18 carat white gold; diamonds; silver; 18ct white gold ear wires.