Church services at St Andrew's Church in Witchfor had some unwanted buzz with an increased number of bees and wasps on the premises.

Over the years, a hive in the building had grown considerably large with at least hundreds if not thousands of insects in it.

After the situation became out of control, the church approached Ian Hugget who is an experienced pest controller.

Most of them escaped unharmed, thanks to Ian’s new bee catching methods.

Ian, who is a professional mole catcher from Hitchin, has recently started catching bees with his new gadget – ‘a bee hoover’.

Although, he says people don’t think of him first when they want to get rid of hives and instead go to bee catchers.

Ely Standard:

Talking about this experience Ian said: “I have been a professional pest controller for years and specialise in mole-catching. However, I grew up in the countryside and a nature lover and want to do my best for the environment.

“Every time there was a post about bee hives on Facebook, I used to see comments where people would say ‘don’t call pest control they will kill them.

"That’s when I did a lot of research and came across this gentleman who makes this instrument which is essentially a hoover that sucks all the bees into a wooden box that is atatched to a vaccum.

"I then very quickly take them into an open space or place of wildlife and set them free. In this process most of them go unharmed.

“At this particular hive at the church, I realised, wasps has got in and killed most of the bees but I think there might have been hundreds more a few days ago.

"I still had quite a few to deal with and managed to get most of them alive and relocate them in the open. Some people might not be happy about this, at least I didn’t kill them and did my bit for the environment.”