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Court in the Swarm

Beegone.co.uk sheds light on the Alcaraz-Zverev tennis match bee invasion

Image courtesy of Sky News

The recent tennis match suspension between Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev due to a bee invasion has captured the public’s attention far beyond the sports world, turning into a buzzing topic of environmental and educational significance. The incident which occurred in Indian Wells, California, has brought to light the general public’s lack of knowledge about bee behaviour, particularly the nature of bee swarms. At Beegone.co.uk, as leaders in bee conservation and safe removal, we see this event as a prime opportunity to educate and advocate for a deeper understanding of bees and their crucial role in our ecosystem.

Understanding Bee Behavior

The unexpected descent of thousands of bees onto a tennis court, leading to the suspension of a high-profile match, may seem alarming at first. However, it’s a phenomenon that, with the right knowledge, can be addressed safely and effectively. Bees swarming is a natural and generally non-aggressive behaviour that occurs when a queen bee leaves the colony with a large group of worker bees in search of a new home. This behaviour is more common in spring, which could explain the timing of the invasion during the Alcaraz-Zverev match.

The public’s confusion during the event, including uncertainty about whether the insects were bees and what prompted their appearance, underscores a widespread need for education on bee behaviour. Many did not know that bees are not usually aggressive when they swarm, as their focus is on protecting the queen, not on attacking bystanders. This lack of knowledge can lead to panic and inappropriate reactions that may endanger both people and bees.

Beegone: Advocating for Education and Coexistence

At Beegone, we are dedicated to educating the public about the importance of bees to our environment and the best practices for coexisting with them. We believe knowledge is the key to reducing fear and fostering a harmonious relationship between humans and bees. By understanding bee behaviour, including why and how bees swarm, individuals can respond more calmly and constructively when encountering them.

Our expertise in safely removing and relocating bee swarms without harming them positions Beegone as a leading authority in this area. We advocate for informed, compassionate approaches to handling bee invasions, emphasising that such incidents, while rare, are opportunities for learning and growth.

How Beegone Can Help

In the wake of the bee invasion at the tennis match, Beegone is stepping up to offer, education, and services to sports venues, schools, businesses, and individuals on how to prepare for and safely address bee swarms. Our team of experts is equipped to provide assistance in live bee removal, ensuring the safety of all involved and the preservation of bee populations. Furthermore, we offer workshops and informational material online aimed at demystifying bees and their behaviours, empowering communities to protect these vital pollinators.

The bee invasion during the Alcaraz-Zverev tennis match is more than just a momentary disruption; it’s a wake-up call highlighting the need for greater awareness and understanding of our natural world. As we move forward, Beegone is committed to leading the charge in educating the public about bees, advocating for their protection, and providing expert services to ensure that humans and bees can coexist peacefully and productively. Together, we can turn moments of confusion and fear into opportunities for learning, growth, and environmental stewardship.

COVID-19: A great time to help Britain’s bees

As a result of lockdowns and reduced travel in 2020/2021, the UK’s bee population has been given a fighting chance. Wildflowers on road verges have been left to grow and a reduction in traffic fumes means bees shouldn’t have to travel as far for good quality pollen. What’s more, there’s been an increase in people trying out beekeeping for themselves – the number of beekeepers registered on Beebase, the National Bee Unit’s voluntary database, is two-and-a-half times what it was 10 years ago, having gone from 16,000 in 2010 to 42,000 in September 2020.

The UK is home to over 250 bee species, including 24 bumblebee species and one honeybee species, while the remainder is made up of solitary bees.

These figures are good news – bees are vital for a number of reasons. Not only do they pollinate crops, which improves food production levels, but they help plants to survive. In the UK the estimated value of insect pollination to crops resulting in higher yield and better quality of seeds and fruit is £400m – £700m. Bees produce honey which has antibacterial properties and is therefore of health benefit both when ingested and when used in various skincare products. They also create wax, which can be found in candles, beauty products and furniture and is often used to preserve produce.

There are many things that we can do to help bees – and these vary from species to species. For solitary bees, building a bee hotel in a garden environment can provide a safe nesting and breeding site. Bumblebees, meanwhile, can be supported with the right choice of plants in a garden, such as high pollen flowers like sunflowers, lavender, foxgloves and even vegetable plants. Avoid rapeseed, as when its brief flowering period ends, it can lead to mass starvation.

Honeybees will also appreciate high pollen flowers, but be warned, the products used to treat gardens can cause devastating effects. Homeowners should use organic products and natural alternatives – such as milk – where possible, rather than synthetic pesticides and plant treatments.

Beekeeper Dan Paul from Surrey says: “I’ve kept honeybees for three years now, but before that, I spent almost 12 months researching the idea and educating myself. I have an apiary of 10 hives with my grandfather and find it an extremely rewarding pastime. My bees produce around 250kg of honey per year, which has therapeutic benefits for my mother, who suffers from ME and hay fever. I’m passionate about saving bees because of their importance to our whole ecosystem – we need to start appreciating them and spreading the word about their benefits.”

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At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

Beegone® specialises in the safe, environmentally friendly, live removal and rehoming of honeybee swarms and colonies, from structures or naturally occurring cavities. We cover the entire UK and have a team of trained and dedicated technicians ready to serve you.

Our aim is to educate people and businesses on honeybee identification and how to deal with them. We remove feral honeybees from structures, relocate them and prevent them from returning.

Unique pest control franchise set to disrupt UK market by saving the environment

A pest control franchise like no other has officially been launched this week. The PGH Beegone Limited franchise comprises of two well-established brands – PGH Pest Control & Prevention and Beegone Live Bee removal, the latter is what makes this new franchise such an exciting proposition. Beegone Live Bee Removal is a pioneering business which removes honey bee colonies and relocates them, without the use of pesticides and insecticides. The inclusion of the Beegone brand in the franchise offering effectively means franchisees are getting two for the price of one.

Based in Surrey, PGH Pest Control & Prevention and Beegone Live Bee removal were formed in 2008 by Peter Higgs, as part of the Prince’s Trust Enterprise programme. Since then, the businesses have gone from strength-to-strength and now serve 8,400 loyal clients across London and the South East. Peter has even been invited to show bees saved by Beegone to Her Majesty, The Queen.

Experts in their fields, PGH Beegone pride themselves on their environmentally-friendly approach to pest control and live bee removal – limiting the use of harmful chemicals wherever possible. They employ a holistic approach, dealing with and resolving problems by providing preventative work for a long-term solution which ensures value for money and client satisfaction.

As demand grew, Peter realised there was opportunity for UK-wide growth and with a replicable business model the company lent itself to franchising so he began putting the necessary markers in place to franchise nationwide.

Peter said: “I couldn’t be more excited that we’re ready to launch the franchise business and can’t wait to grow the PGH Beegone family. We see this as the perfect time, it’s been a turbulent year and many people are looking for a fresh start – the pest control and live bee removal industries have shown themselves to be both recession-proof and Covid-proof so this is a low risk strategy.

I genuinely believe there’s no comparable franchise opportunity out there at the moment and this is a real gold mine for people looking to own a business who have the right attitude, the desire to make a difference and are ready to reap the rewards of their hard work.”

If you’d like further information about becoming part of the PGH Beegone family, please get in touch with us.

Tel: 01483 387414
Email: [email protected]
www.pghbeegonefranchise.co.uk

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At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

Our aim is to educate people and businesses on honeybee identification and how to deal with them. We remove feral honeybees from structures, relocate them and prevent them from returning.

Peter Higgs wins Most Inspiring Business Person award

Peter Higgs was nominated for this award by one of his staff members who labels him as ‘the most inspiring business person’ she knows… and we agree.

Peter grew up in Surrey where he lived with his mother and three sisters.

His childhood was difficult, his father left home and Peter struggled enormously with dyslexia and Tourette’s – he was bullied immensely because of this. Peter grew to hate school and refused to attend.

Social services and the police got involved when Peter was no longer going to school and his behaviour was labelled as antisocial. He was put on medication for his Tourette’s but reacted badly and was hospitalised. A new medication was administered but this meant Peter would need constant supervision and was subsequently placed in a Children’s home in Bognor Regis. During his time there, he got involved with older children who encouraged him to steal cars and take drugs.

Peter’s future was not bright. He was transferred to foster care, rehabilitation centres and eventually a secure unit. He was released once he was able to come off his medication but he had missed so much school that he was unable to complete his GCSEs and instead started working as a farmhand earning £35 a day.

With his newfound love of the outdoors, he developed friendships with local gamekeepers where he discovered a passion for wildlife management. Social services helped Peter complete a course on countryside management where Peter decided he would love to run his own Pest Control business but his lack of education and experience left him feeling that it would be too much of an undertaking.

Along came the help and support of The Prince’s Trust Enterprise Programme who provided Peter with the knowledge he needed to set up his very first business – PGH Pest Control and Prevention.

In 2013, Peter won the RBS Enterprise Award, he is now managing director and owner of Higgs Holdings which incorporates six brands relating to pest control and saving bees. He employs a team of 16, offers services nationwide and last year he exceeded a 1 million turnover.

You really do have an incredible story and you should be very proud of what you have achieved.

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At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

Our aim is to educate people and businesses on honeybee identification and how to deal with them. We remove feral honeybees from structures, relocate them and prevent them from returning.

People Profile – Peter Higgs

Some people you meet don’t seem to have any direction or sense of purpose in life, whereas others, when they find it, just take off and soar like a bird!’ . . . writes A. Starling.

PETER HIGGS’ STORY – Courtesy of Cranleigh Magazine.

Original link here:

Peter grew up in Ewhurst, where he has lived for about twenty-six years or so. He grew up in a family home where he was brought up by his mum primarily – with three sisters: two older, Anna and Leona, and one younger, Tamsin.

“I actually got bullied a lot at primary school by a group of my classmates. I struggled with some of the lessons and I had Tourette’s on top of being dyslexic so I ticked a bit. My nerve spasms meant I got picked out from the rest and I became very anxious and stressed. I’d never felt like that before and I remember the bullying started around year 5 and 6, when my dad was on the path to leaving.

Peter grew up in Ewhurst, where he has lived for about twenty six years or so. He grew up in a family home where he was brought up by his mum primarily – with three sisters: two older, Anna and Leona, and one younger, Tamsin.

I started working with local gamekeepers and on farms; Murray Butler from Bowles farm invited me to come up and help out with the farm labour – which I loved. My family used to go on a lot of camping holidays when I was younger to the New Forest which is where I got this love for the outside and animals – birds in particular. I’ve loved birds ever since I was young, and I’ve got pictures of me as a lad, chasing chickens around and holding doves and pigeons in Trafalgar square.

After Primary school, I moved onto Glebelands School where I was a student for about two months. It was such a short amount of time because the bullying intensified and I was in a class with people I didn’t know. I was split up from my friends that helped me to be sensible, which had a big impact on me. I didn’t feel that the teachers were fair and I ended up getting a lot of detentions.

The detentions seemed to last forever, and I ended up with my first month of playtime gone. I ended up thinking: “well, if that’s the case, then there’s no point in me coming here” I didn’t enjoy school and all these detentions meant I had no fun at break times.

It was at this point that I befriended a jackdaw, when I wasn’t going to school. I fed it for four days and it was eventually eating out of my hand and treating me like its mother. It soon became my pet.

Social services got involved, then eventually the police too. I ended up climbing onto the roof when they came round to get me, throwing tiles at the police cars.

From that point, things just spiralled out of control. I opened myself up to a lot of other things. I ended up staying in a cell overnight which was an experience.

I ended up travelling up to London with my mum to have a meeting with a specialist about my Tourette’s. I remember that the specialist was busy when we arrived and we ended up waiting for four hours. On the third hour, I stormed in – kicked the door open – and yelled “When are you gonna start seeing us? We’ve been sat here for ages and I’ve had enough!”

Turns out she was in a very official, important board meeting with several other doctors and she was quite peeved that I’d burst in like that, telling my mum to “control your child!”

They prescribed Diazepam which I started taking. On the first morning I had a severe reaction to it and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance for treatment.

I was then put on medication that would work well under supervision while I was in care, and placed in a children’s home in Bognor Regis for about six months. I ended up getting involved with the older children there who encouraged me to steal cars and take drugs with them, so I was transferred to one-to-one care.

When that didn’t work out, I briefly stayed at another boarding school before I was placed in foster care up near Kingston. I remember my mum coming to see me at weekends to pray for me which I found comforting at the time. I hadn’t really found Jesus at that point, and was a pretty difficult child when I was taken to church – I remember cutting seats up at the back, with a pen knife.
I was sent to another children’s home and then to a boarding school before being put back into one-to-one care. By this point I was fed up. I had been through about 10 -13 different places and was then told I would be moved again. I just climbed up a telegraph pole and threatened to jump into the wires. I had a good view of birdworld so I said “Go away, I’m staying here. I’m happy here”.

When they finally got me down, I was taken straight to a high security building for troubled youths – where they took my jackdaw away. I couldn’t even walk out of my own room without a key card and I had to be let out to go to the toilet. I remember being in there when the twin towers went down on September 11th and they let us watch the news unfold on the TV. There were mainly girls in there and I was pretty much the only guy so it was quite lonely.

When they realised I wasn’t suicidal, I was allowed to move on to Stepping Stones – which is a rehabilitation home for children. I was at the point of despair and I had started wondering what life was really about when my mum gave me a children’s bible to read. There’s not much to do when you’re locked in your room all day so I started reading about the miracles that Jesus performed. I was inspired to reach out and pray “if you are there, and you’re real and willing, please change my life – and I promise I’ll live my life in a way to please you.”

I was in the home for at least a year before I was released and came off my medication. I honestly don’t believe it was medication that helped me keep calm as much as the physical activity, and not eating so many sweets! I think people underestimate the effect what you put in your body has on your mental state.

By the time I was released, all my peers were finishing their GCSE’s at the time, so I went back to Mr Butler who gave me a job helping out as a farm hand for about £35 a day.

Social Services then helped me get into Merrist Wood where I did a course on countryside management. This was a stepping stone to Sparsholt College in Winchester who specialise in game keeping. It was in Sparsholt that I completed a course in Pest Control, receiving a distinction for my effort. I used this knowledge to combine my farm work during the week with pest control for family and friends at weekends, before realising I was earning more money from my weekend work than I was during the week! I put two and two together and decided to start my own Pest control business, PGH.

At the time I was attending Cranleigh Baptist church where I met Paul Higgins. I told him about my trouble getting PGH off the ground and he suggested the Princes Trust.

My initial application was refused. Once I gave them more details about my situation, I was told they’d be happy to help.

The Trust placed me on business courses and I also started business networking with Paul who picked me up early in the morning and took me to Croydon for these events. I went along about 6 or 7 times, drumming up business before subsequently joining the branch in Cranleigh.

I did so well on the enterprise business course with PGH that I got nominated for the national “Princes Trust celebrate success” RBS Award 2013. The award was based on turnover, business plan, employees, branding, website, growth of the business, and the company ethos. I ended up winning the award, and it was presented to me by Prince Charles. You always think it will never happen to you and I . . . couldn’t believe it. Even my dad was in the audience, he’d taken the train and accompanied my mum and me. You could hear him shout: “YES!” when my name was announced – so it was a happy time for me.

My real motivator was the prayer I made in that children’s home, years before. I felt that I had God behind me, driving me to succeed in something that he wanted me to do.

After a couple of years running the business, I realised that there was a problem in the way that pest controllers were treating honeybees at the time, and I knew that honeybees were on the decline because of this. I decided to niche into environmentally friendly pest control to provide a bee-friendly option, and I started Beegone – a subsidiary of PGH that focuses on bee removal. I have around 9 employees now, including myself.

I had the fantastic opportunity to meet the Queen in 2015 when I was invited back for the 40th anniversary of the Princes Trust, and we had a great conversation. I showed her the Queen Bee we had in our display and told her “We’ve got two queens in the room today!”

I am thankful for my faith, to my mum for her prayers, and to God for answering them.

www.pghpestcontrol.co.uk

www.beegone.co.uk

TOPICS

How to get rid of bees

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Industry-related topics

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Press room

At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

Our aim is to educate people and businesses on honeybee identification and how to deal with them. We remove feral honeybees from structures, relocate them and prevent them from returning.

Press room

Court in the Swarm

Beegone.co.uk sheds light on the Alcaraz-Zverev tennis match bee invasion

Understanding Bee Behavior

Beegone: Advocating for Education and Coexistence

How Beegone Can Help

COVID-19: A great time to help Britain’s bees

TOPICS

How to get rid of bees

Surveys​

FAQS

Industry-related topics

Costs

Blog articles

Press room

At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

Unique pest control franchise set to disrupt UK market by saving the environment

TOPICS

How to get rid of bees

Surveys​

FAQS

Industry-related topics

Costs

Blog articles

Press room

At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

Peter Higgs wins Most Inspiring Business Person award

TOPICS

How to get rid of bees

Surveys​

FAQS

Industry-related topics

Costs

Blog articles

Press room

At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

People Profile – Peter Higgs

PETER HIGGS’ STORY – Courtesy of Cranleigh Magazine.

TOPICS

How to get rid of bees

Surveys​

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Industry-related topics

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At Beegone® Honeybee Removal, we truly understand how precious our bees are.

Have a bee problem? Call our care team 24/7 on 0208 088 4787

We do charge for swarm removal and honeybee removal.

We have local technicians serving all areas in the uk including the following:

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