Try getting the customer to stand up in court or even name the muppet, it won't happen.
I see a pest controller is being pilloried on the BBKA Facebook page for destroying bees.
Itchy re the BBKA FACEBOOK
I don't know much about the circumstances of the pest controller being hammered on the BBKA Facebook page.
If you don’t read the full piece you miss a lot
The whole article is annoying; so here are some thoughts from a professional swarmcatcher (swarmcatcher.co.uk)
From what I could see of the photos the bees were clustered up around the window, if they had been there like that for 3 days then they would be getting low on resources and the potential for people to be stung would be increasing – furthermore likelihood of swarm surviving would be reducing if out in the rain.
A lot of beekeepers might be fine running round their hives with nothing on gently singing to their well-mannered queens, but reality is most of the population aren’t and for good reason.
Have they not heard of Kounis syndrome or anaphylactic shock or just a severe reaction?
So height is probably a little less than 10 metres. No idea of ground conditions below or the accessibility to ground below – I’m doubting very much that there are many swarm list beekeepers that have appropriate access equipment to deal with the problem.
No advice from local swarm collectors was given on who to call to resolve this problem. – WHY?
Because these swarm collectors are interested in easy swarms for their own gain – not as a service of assistance. Sure people may be grateful for having the bees collected – but we all know how easy it is. These swarm collectors try to appear as if they know it all – why don’t they admit defeat and advise people on who next to contact so the bees can be dealt with properly.
We often find bees entrenched because swarm collectors have pissed about giving inappropriate advice for too long. The longer the bees are in situ the more complicated it gets – and the more expensive it gets.
The people on the swarm list apparently were not interested - you would think they would know who to call if the scope of work was beyond their skill set wouldn't you.
Why does the BBKA not provide an information template so that these people collecting swarms can do just that, it should be a BBKA requirement that anybody listed on the swarm collection list understand properly what alternatives are available, and that time is of the essence?
Advice from council was poor - FULL STOP.
Advice from BPCA would have been as good as it could be based on information provided by caller.
Interestingly it appears they called BPCA for help but did not use a BPCA pest controller by the looks of it – I guess they were that desperate that concerns about H&S went out the window especially as it was done for a charitable price(£).
The guy thought he could gain some good publicity by doing the work for just the cost of fuel and materials, don't know what equipment he was using to treat with but hopefully he didn't include that in with the material price - I wonder how much he did charge - he was clearly going after publicity and photo shots - which he found and he has definitely got some publicity.
Don't know how much experience he has but his site has only been around for a year - maybe he was doing it as a birthday celebration as he was finding things quiet.
His site says that “Pest ID have the full backing of the BPCA (British Pest Control Association) and a support network of other reliable and trustworthy Pest Control firms who are happy to work with us on jobs that could be considered too much for us alone” not sure what that means – the full backing of the BPCA, I don’t think it means a fully payed up and audited member of the BPCA, I would have thought that if it did mean that it would say it. Further more i could not find any reference to his website on the BPCA search facility!
“Ian Bright MBPR (Pest Control) Director”
To be able to place MBPR after your name you need to be on the BASIS PROMPT register – can’t see his name in the Essex area, but to be honest with the way in which the search (doesn’t) work on the BASIS PROMPT register I can’t usually find mine either.
He mentioned that he sprayed the insecticide rather than dusted, and that all the bees were on the floor (8000 of them, he counted them quickly having done the job in less than 45 minutes). Not sure which insecticide he can use for knocking down bees outside as all the labelling is constantly changing tightening up to prevent use externally especially on honey bees.
Hopefully it was not a windy day; that spray could have drifted a long way if it was.
Hopefully it was a short residual insecticide.
He clearly didn't realise that dead bees can sting humans and animals otherwise he would have cleared them up.
I guess Chelmsford is having better weather than the majority of us, as the bees would definitely not be drying up and turning to dust round us, they would be going mouldy and rotten emitting a fairly unpleasant odour right now.
This looked like a straight forward job for anyone carrying out this type of work professionally – but you do need to know what you are doing, which means you need to know about bees and have kit not commercially available and lets not forget insurance - all of which costs money.
