Two days before I meet Charles Millar, I'm stung on the toe by a bee. It hurt like hell and it's the first thing I mention when I meet Charles in his home in Shropshire where he runs beekeeping courses.

"It was agony, Charles," I tell him. "I couldn't believe how painful it was. And then I was wracked with sorrow. Because the bee was dead."

"Bee stings are really painful," says Charles, with a nod. "But that's because they've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to deter bears. It's the only way they can stop them. Bees are noble creatures. They'll happily sacrifice themselves for the collective."

"Is it true beekeepers never get stung?" I ask, hopefully.

"No. I get stung every day," answers Charles, with a resigned shrug.

I have an immense fondness for bees. I think most people do. The fact that all human existence seems reliant on them means they are permanently excused from swatting. My father drummed into me, from a very early age, that I should never, ever kill a bee.

There's a strange contraption on the desk in front of me and I can't help wondering what it is.

"That's for artificially inseminating virgin queens," explains Charles. "When bees are preparing to swarm, they start creating queens. The first virgin queen to emerge kills all her sisters and she's got three weeks to have sex. If she misses the window, that's it. In the wild, a virgin queen will fly up into the air and have sex with as many drones as she can find. Then she stores up all their semen inside her, flies back to the hive, takes half the bees with her and off they swarm. But the problem with virgin queens having sex in the wild is that they can mate with any old Asbo bee. You can end up with ghastly aggressive bees. And I'm trying to ensure that we have lovely, passive bees so I artificially inseminate."

I frown a little. "I hope you don't mind my asking," I chip in. "But how do you gather bee semen?"

"I'll show you," says Charles.

I won't lie. I was expecting to come to Shropshire and look at some hives and spread honey on some crumpets while listening to Nimrod. I wasn't expecting to sex up a bee, but here I am, white overalls on, cage over my head, hunched over a hive looking for drones who want to get jiggy.

"All the drones do is hang about waiting for a Virgin Queen," says Charles. "They're very docile. The other bees like having them around. They're like lads hanging about a shopping centre."

They're easy to spot. They're larger and lazy looking. The worker bees are a mass of activity – helping make the waxy combs, depositing pollen, dancing the co-ordinates of any new pollen source, they're a constant source of motion – and then, lumped amongst them, there are the drones. "They can't even feed themselves," says Charles, ruefully. "Their only purpose is to have sex. Their penis snaps off inside the queen. And then they die."

"They die?" I ask, startled.

Charles nods then flinches slightly. "Oh," he adds, stoically, "I've been stung."

There's a bee hanging off the end of his finger. I then watch, agog, as Charles carefully scrapes the bee off with a spatula so that the bee doesn't lose its stinger and will live.

Charles has found a suitable candidate. He squeezes the drone gently between two fingers and proffers him up.

"Can't we go out for dinner and a film first?" I ask, hopefully.

"Sadly not," says Charles.

I wish I could pull the curtain of discretion over what happened next but for those of you who want to know how to have sex with a bee, then read on. Drones don't have stingers. That's the good news. If you're ever chased round the garden by a drone, he doesn't want to sting you. He just wants to have sex with you. If you're in the mood to reciprocate his advances, then you need to stroke his abdomen. A claw-like protrusion will pop out of the bee's bottom swiftly followed by his penis which, I cannot lie, is enormous. It's eye popping. If a man ever tells you he's hung like a bee – run for the hills.

I stand, staring down at the now dead bee in my hand. I'm the Rebecca Loos of bees, I think. I don't feel good about this.

Happily, Charles decides to take me out of the apiary to eat some honey. He is engaging, passionate, informative, and his weekend courses will teach you everything you need to know about keeping bees – from how to start your own apiary to how to turn a profit.

"Dig into that," he says, pointing towards the honeycomb we've just taken from the hive. The honey is delicious. Problem is, I can't stop thinking about that drone.

"He died happy," says Charles. "It's the best way to go."

• The course was provided by Tiger Hall (Church Stretton, 01694 723484, beekeepingcourses.co.uk) where a two-day introduction to beekeeping costs £325pp,B&B accommodation £50pp pn extra. The next course is 18-19 August

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