ntt.”Mesmerizing Maternity: A Captivating Photoshoot with 20,000 Bees Commemorating a Memorable First Pregnancy”

Emily Mueller, 33, from Ohio, got the honeybees to settle on her stomach by holding the queen bee in a cage in her hand.

The expectant mother is a full-time beekeeper who keeps 24 hives containing around 1.2 millions bees and says she’s been stung a whopping 350 times this year alone.

But she said she wasn’t scared about having the photos taken because she feels at ease with the insects.

On the morning of the shoot, Emily was called to a job which required her to remove a hive from a park and she used those bees for the pictures.

Despite being stung three times, she says the end result was worth it.

The mum said: “A lot of people think I’m insane but I’m so comfortable with bees so it was never something I had anxiety about.

“I wore a dress that was long and covered my stomach and legs so the bees would be on the outside of my body as a precautionary measure, but I knew it was safe.

“I had been called to a swarm removal that morning so I fed those bees sugar to make sure they would be content and gentle enough to work with.

“Then I put the queen bee in a cage and tied it to a branch in a tree in the garden. She is larger and bigger so it was easy to identify her.

“Then I shook the bees from the hive and they all flew straight to her.