Bee rescue in Northamptonshire village as 40,000 bees set up home in chimney

Our reporters Nish Kumar and Josh Widdicombe are on the scene of the recovery of 40,000 bees from a chimney in Mawsley, near Kettering.

Follow our reporters Josh and Nish on a very special bee rescue
The bees will be removed using specialist equipment – a type of bee vacuum – to keep them alive so they can be transferred to a safer place.
Experts have been using scaffolding on the chimney to access the location where the bees were found by the homeowners.
The vacuum has been attached to the top of the chimney. Once the expert are confident that they have removed most of the bees, a bricklayer will crack the top off to remove the honeycomb and any stragglers
The bees have been vacuumed out and now the honey comb will be extracted
Josh Widdicombe has dropped his phone down the chimney
Phone recovered - but covered in honey
Breaking news regarding chimney status
The ‘chimney’ is ornamental
The extraction has been safely completed
The Bees will now be transferred to the farm

Enormous news!

Our reporter has been summoned to the scene - this suggests progress has been made.

Huge news from our on site reporter - THE CHIMNEY IS NOT REAL - it is ornamental

George and Mark run their pest control business and their beekeeping is a hobby they have incorporated into their work

Our reporter on the scene has continued to remark on the volume of bees

On the plus side he hasn't dropped anymore devices into the hole

Father and son team, George and Mark are now reaching into the hole in order to extract the honeycomb

The moody clouds are providing an appropriately austere backdrop to the process of bee extraction

The numbers of visible has slowly reduced as the process of extraction nears completion.

This should now be plain sailing as long as an idiot doesn't drop their phone in the hole

The phone is "covered in honey".

It is unclear if this has compromised the phone's circuitry

We are just over halfway through the extraction process

So far everything is proceeding to plan - apart from the unfortunate incident of a journalist dropping their phone into the hole