Bees Out! Owners of this towering giant of up to 35 metres needed to have four colonies of bees removed before aborists would work on the tree.

Ladders are no good here. It’s a real challenge to manage the equipmet for either a swarm or nest removal from a tree without the need to worry about the stability of a ladder. In this instance I utilised ropes and expert ground crew to send me equipment – although at times I felt like Batman with a utility belt.

I’ll hopefully share a video of the removal of these colonies for when I climbed the tree there were actually six separate colonies in tree hollows. The method of removal I used was a little smoke, my backback Beevac and ample time to remove the comb, which took hours. After the comb was removed I plugged each of the hollows with mulch. This decision was made so that the hollow could be cleaned out by ants and other insects and then eventually the hollow could be available once more for indigenous fauna such as possums, bats or birds.

It pays to be well prepared before ascending a tree of this magnitude and my ground and lead climber was excellent.

No matter the height above ground any bee remover might be working, it prompts me to ask where is the industry regulation required to ensure that all beekeepers are offered guidance and/or certification in the safe working from heights? Who’s leading this? And who’s insuring those who don’t have safe work practice?