Bee pictures mark third Manchester Arena bomb anniversary

Manchester bees are appearing in windows in Greater Manchester to remember the 22 victims

Pictures of bees have started appearing in windows across Greater Manchester to mark the third anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing.

Children have been drawing the bees "to remember the 22 angels" who were killed in the terror attack on 22 May, 2017.

Greater Manchester mum Steph Taylor said: "We haven't forgotten them."

The images are being displayed alongside pictures of rainbows, which have featured in windows across the nation during the coronavirus outbreak.

Twenty-two people died and more than 1,000 people were injured in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017

Steph Taylor, 35, from Eccles, Greater Manchester, who has six children, said they decided "as a family to do something and share the message that we stand together".

"We haven't forgotten the 22 people who died," she said.

Her daughter Kara was the same age as the youngest victim, eight-year-old Saffie Roussos, and Steph said it affected her for a long time.

"Kara was really scared and upset about what happened and was worried everywhere she went that something would happen to her and her friends.

Steph Taylor's six children each made a bee

"Three years on we wanted to show we still remember them.

"We've been drawing rainbows for the key workers and did a special display for VE Day and so it felt right to make a bee display."

Sharon Armstrong's daughter was at the Ariana Grande concert on the night of the bomb and said the third anniversary had a "special meaning" to the family.

The 45-year-old mum of three has displayed her children's bee pictures alongside rainbows in the family's window."I know it means so much to so many people, remembering the 22 angels," she said.

Leeanne Ogden says her four-year-old daughter Kiera knows the bees "represent people who were loved".

Oldham mum Leeanne Ogden, 41, said although her four-year old daughter Kiera is too young to understand what happened that night she knows the bees "represent people who were loved and are now no longer with us".

"When she sees a bee in the garden she says it's a Manchester bee," she said.

The bee has been an emblem of Manchester since the Victorian era when its mills and factories were described as a "hive of activity" and the worker bee features on the city's coat of arms and on mosaic tiles of the town hall.

In 2017, people across the city displayed the image in solidarity after the bomb attack and many queued for bee tattoos.