DURING that spell of very mild weather just before Christmas I had a fascinating wildlife experience and narrow escape all rolled into one.

I was walking the dogs in Mulgrave Woods, near Whitby, when our way along the track was partially blocked by a large fallen oak tree. Estate forestry workers had sawn it into chunks allowing us to squeeze through the resulting gaps, but strangely they seemed to have abandoned the track clearance job half-way through. It was only later that I was to realise why.

Like many mature trees this one had a hollow centre (see photo) but what did surprise me, it being the middle of December, were the unseasonal flies buzzing around the exposed hollow entrance. On closer inspection they turned out to be bees, and the fact that they had full pollen sacs on their hind pair of legs meant that they must be honeybees.

Now, at this point I was well and truly baffled. Firstly, I was under the impression that wild honey bees did not exist in Britain, having become extinct in the early 1900s.

Furthermore, I thought that they hibernated in winter so you would never see them flying around in December....and where on earth had the pollen the bees were carrying come from?

It was while I was musing on these entomological puzzles that one of my dogs obviously caught a tantalising whiff of honey and shoved his snout into the tree hollow. Realising the danger I immediately called him away and grabbed his collar to speed things up...but the damage had already been done.

In pulling Bill away my head had ended up nearest to the tree so the angry worker bee emerging assumed that I was the rude sniffer and launched a high-speed attack straight into my face. My very quick swat brushed her away before she could land but in that split second’s contact her sting must have grazed my cheek because I felt an immediate nettle tingle on my skin and beat a hasty retreat.

If the bee had managed to sting me properly things might not have ended so happily. Bee stings are barbed like fishhooks so if they puncture the skin they stay there, allowing a muscular gland to pump painful acid into the wound. Even if the bee is flicked off, the venom sac will keep pumping through the sting for up to a minute while the dying bee releases an alarm pheromone which mobilises the rest of the colony.

The resulting multiple sting events have been known to be fatal both to humans and other animals. Now I know why the chainsaw operator abandoned his job so abruptly.

Fortunately for me the attack response wasn't triggered and all was calm at the colony on the return leg of my walk. I was even able to take a quick flash photograph of the bees huddling together at the back of their nest cavity.

Later, back at home, a phone call to the Whitby and District Beekeepers Association filled in most of the gaps in my honeybee knowledge. Yes, there are wild colonies in the area; they are the native British black honeybee and the colonies are feral - the result of swarms from local beekeepers hives recolonising our local woods. Yes, bees can be active at any time of year when the air temperature is 10 degrees Celsius or above and no, they are not a danger to the public (unless your dog pokes his nose in where it's not wanted).

The source of the pollen remains a mystery. All the text books are adamant that the latest flowering plant in our woodlands is ivy and their blooms turned into those famous Christmas berries back in November.