About SwarmCatcher

honey bee nest removal: Training

There is no direct route for training for honey bee nest removal training. We have always ensured that we have adequate training and experience for the task in hand, and on occasion call in other specialists from other trades, such as stone masons and roofing specialists to work on areas beyond our skill set.

During our long process of learning how best to carry out live honey bee colony removal work safely, we have met and talked to many interesting specialists in other fields of work, from both this country and abroad, and are fortunate enough that we can call upon these people for some very useful advice if needed.

As part of our learning development to enable us to properly carry out live honey bee colony removal and relocation work, we have in the past enrolled ourselves on various relevant specialised courses.

Before we first started working on chimneys we wanted to ensure that we knew as much as we could so we sent Ian our chief bee remover on a Chimney Sweeps (chimney engineer) course. Little did we know back then just how important Ian’s engineering degree was going to be, especially from a structural point of view.

Doing this course helped us better understand chimneys in a structural manner, but also highlighted that they are a controlled device.

Now thanks to some day courses on live honey bee removal there is an increasing number of “self-proclaimed” honey bee colony removal experts” that don’t seem to have any concept of the dangers that they inadvertently creating when working on a honey bee removal from a chimney. Some of the advice we have seen can only be considered as outright dangerous – clearly they have a lack of understanding of the impact their work could have on what is a controlled device and the potentially dangerous effects upon peoples health & lives.

One thing is for certain, a day long Introduction course as attended by many pest controllers is not sufficient time to even cover all the subjects that are needed to carry out a live honey bee removal properly, responsibly & successfully. As for the required in-depth knowledge and practical skills required need we say more.

Though we would never describe ourselves as experts we are in a position to be able to offer good sound advice, with a greater level of knowledge than most builders and HETAS scheme members and the desire to find out more if we do not know.

We continue to update training in various fields, including lime mortar and pointing techniques, health & safety courses, safe working practices and working at height with various bits of equipment.

Continual research into things that most would not even consider, be it to do with building design or nectar production of wild flowers.

But most important of all is the level of experience we have developed over the last 15+ years.

Experience is Important

When we first started to remove honey bee colonies from places they ought not to be it was as an extension to our free swarm collection service – something we no longer have time to do, especially since the new introduction of our “URGENT SWARM EVICTION” service.

Trying to put a date on when we first started as a business is difficult, as it was mixed in with the free swarm collecting service that Ian would do.
During the days of the swarm collecting it became more & more common for him to be called to swarms that were in fact established colonies leading to him being caught up in trying to identify how best to get the bees out of the property.

It was during these times that we realised the need for accurate information was so necessary.
This is when Beverley developed her approach for gaining as much information as possible, before we arrived on site.
In those days we were not travelling all over the country carrying out removals, but now that we are, we can see that those times of learning were very important.