# Claim table

- **The social Reel says Margaret Bell was a beekeeper and bees attended her funeral.** — viral claim captured: Captured directly from Instagram metadata and repost captions.
- **“Telling the bees” is an old funeral/family custom.** — supported folklore/history: 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.
- **A woman named Margaret Bell, age 82, had a bee swarm appear at or around her funeral/home.** — weakly sourced / not independently verified here: 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.
- **The bees knowingly “attended” the funeral out of love or spiritual recognition.** — interpretation / not proven: 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.
- **The story “made headlines across Wales, Britain, and around the world.”** — not supported by sources found: The repeated 2026 article says this, but the searched web results did not surface the alleged older headline trail.