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When a swarm of bees descended on Hope Street’s Pizza Express in 2016 and a passerby heard people talking about reaching for the insecticide, he knew straight away who to call.

Within half an hour, Barry the beekeeper was down at the scene, coaxing the honey bees to safety with nothing more than a folded t-shirt and a bee smoker.

His remarkable act was caught on camera and he soon became known as the “Bee Whisperer”.

Barry, whose full name is Harold Chang, has been cultivating hives at his allotment in the Dingle for nearly 20 years and is a well respected local expert in beekeeping.

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

He has been a fully-accredited member of the British Beekeepers Association since 2012, and is regularly called upon to deal with unwelcome swarms.

Born in Jamaica, Barry’s passion for beekeeping came from childhood: "When I was small, I used to just love to sit and watch the bees flying.

He said, "it seems like it is in my blood as my grandfather also kept bees although I never knew him."

"A friend used to collect honey but he never liked bees.

"I told him that, all right, I'm going to bring him anywhere he want to go, he could collect the honey and I would collect the bees.

Barry removing bees from Pizza Express on Hope Street:

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"And then after that, next year the amount of honey that I got, him have to come to me to get some honey and so he realised you have to have bees to get honey."

Barry arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 2001 and kept up his love of beekeeping. He took a course with the British Beekeepers Association, gaining full accreditation in 2012.

(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)

Barry said: "The bees are declining. They are an endangered species so I am here to take care of the bees and build up the population."

He is currently in the process of setting up a charitable organisation to teach more people about the importance of bees and how to look after them.

He said: "60% of the food that we eat has to be pollinated and without bees we wouldn't have any food to eat."

Barry currently has about 50 hives across Toxteth, and with each hive home to between 6,000 and 25,000 bees, he is responsible for hundreds of thousands of Liverpool's honey bees.

Barry tends hives at John Archer Hall off Windsor Street and also has just set up 17 hives at the Merseyside Caribbean Centre, although most are at his Dingle allotment, where he grows his own food.

(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)

He is also a registered collector of honey bees with the British Beekeepers Association, regularly called upon to deal with unwanted swarms.

He said: "I come and collect all honey bees for free, no charge, nothing for it."

Barry's love for honey bees has come in part from studying their behaviour for many years.

He explains: "When a bee finds food they come back to the hive and tell everyone where to find the food, and that is a form of unity and that is the main reason why I love honey bees. They are unifying one and other and they work with one another. "

Efforts to cultivate local bee populations can be seen more and more in community centres and gardens across Liverpool and Barry has noticed this increase in honey bees flying around.

He said: "When I first came to this town in 2001, I kept looking but I never saw honey bees.

"Now a lot of people are keeping bees in Liverpool. There are a lot of bees flying around, and that's a good sign for the bees and for pollination.

(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)

"Every morning when I get up the first thing I do is sit with the bees for a period of time then I go to the allotment and do some work and then I sit there again and watch them. I've learned lots of things from them. Honey bees are my pets."

Barry has helped over 50 people in the local community get into beekeeping, signposting enthusiasts to courses with the British Beekeepers Association.

That passerby on Hope Street in 2016 was Freddie Tonkmore who, inspired by Barry’s daring bee rescue, began to learn more about beekeeping.

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Three years later he has several hives of his own, which he keeps in his back garden, and has already collected his first honey of the season, as well as helping Barry to set up new hives.

With the decline in bee populations hitting headlines in recent years and cited as a major concern by environmental groups, the role of bee-lovers such as Barry, inspiring others to care for nature's premier pollinators, is all the more important.

The need to nurture bee populations comes especially into focus in their active season during the summer months when they are busy pollinating green spaces across the city.

For Barry, his love of bees has become a way of life and their significance simply cannot be overstated: “Without the bees where are we? If the bees die, then humans die."