[
  {
    "claim": "The social Reel says Margaret Bell was a beekeeper and bees attended her funeral.",
    "label": "viral claim captured",
    "finding": "Captured directly from Instagram metadata and repost captions."
  },
  {
    "claim": "“Telling the bees” is an old funeral/family custom.",
    "label": "supported folklore/history",
    "finding": "Multiple folklore summaries describe a Western European/British custom of telling bees about deaths, marriages and household events; omission was traditionally believed to risk bees leaving, dying or stopping honey production."
  },
  {
    "claim": "A woman named Margaret Bell, age 82, had a bee swarm appear at or around her funeral/home.",
    "label": "weakly sourced / not independently verified here",
    "finding": "Recent social posts and small sites repeat this account, but searches did not find a primary obituary, local newspaper report, family statement, funeral notice, archive article or named scientific/beekeeping witness record."
  },
  {
    "claim": "The bees knowingly “attended” the funeral out of love or spiritual recognition.",
    "label": "interpretation / not proven",
    "finding": "Even if a swarm or cluster occurred, intent cannot be established. Honey-bee swarming, clustering and attraction to cavities/odours/environment can look purposeful without proving consciousness of a funeral."
  },
  {
    "claim": "The story “made headlines across Wales, Britain, and around the world.”",
    "label": "not supported by sources found",
    "finding": "The repeated 2026 article says this, but the searched web results did not surface the alleged older headline trail."
  }
]