# My way to make a Bee Vac



## chazman (Dec 2, 2010)

I have been meaning to make or purchase a Bee Vac for a couple years now. I don't mind paying for a good piece of equipment if it will last me a long while, my bigger issue is storage space. I just don't have a lot of room in my small operation for a lot of gear that doesn't get used very often.

So my premise was to try and keep it smaller, or at least use gear I already had on hand, like buckets, and my existing shop-vac hose.

One of the things i noticed with all of the bucket vac designs is that they all had modifications to take down the vacuum strength so that the bees were not harmed. This got me thinking about another source of suction. This is what I came up with.

Materials:

5 gallon bucket
Shop Vac hose
12v Air Pump (same as a strong mattress pump, mine was for pumping up a ski inner tube)
Adapter from air pump to act as a connecting bushing
Spare 5 gallon bucket lid
Shop Vac hose adapter (can be purchased or made from PVC)
Small piece of #8 hardware cloth
Portable battery pack for power source

What I did was basically make a Bee Vac bucket lid that could be stored by itself, and used with other parts I already had during swarm season. The benefit of the air pump was that it had just enough suction, and it was powered by 12v so I could use my Harbor Freight 3in1 battery pack to power the vac anywhere. No need for electrical cords or power outlets. Bee Swarms are not always near a power source to plug in your Bee Vac. The whole apparatus was also very light and could be taken up a ladder easier than most Vac designs I had seen.

*NOTE: Please ignore the big crack in the lid that I have epoxied. This was not part of the design! I was just using an old lid with a crack in it for my experiment. The epoxy made it air tight.*








In this first picture I am showing the bucket lid where I drilled two holes. One for the Air Pump, and one for the Shop Vac hose adapter. I used one of the air pump adapter fittings and cut it down a bit and then epoxied it into the bucket lid. I also cut a hole in the lid for the Shop Vac hose adapter and epoxied that into place








This is the underside of the lid. I am showing that I put a small piece of #8 hardware cloth over the suction hole of the air pump so that bees would not be sucked into the air pump.








Here are all the parts of the Vac disassembled. 








Here is the Vac assembled with the Shop Vac hose connected.








Here is a picture of all I have to store in my shed for my new Bee Vac, because my bucket, battery pack, air pump, and Shop Vac hose all have their own storage spots 

When I tested this on actual bees it worked perfectly. Not one bee was squashed during the test, and there was just enough suction to take in the bees.
I also did a separate experiment to find out how long my Harbor Freight 3in1 battery pack would run the air pump. A fully charged battery pack ran the air pump for over 45 minutes. Plenty of time to Vac a swarm.

I hope someone finds this useful and can even perhaps improve upon the design.

Chaz


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Looks good. The only thing I could approve upon would be to make a long cage over the suction hole instead of the flat screen. Simply due to the fact it would take only a few bees to clog the flat screen when they cluster on the inside of the lid. 
Thankfully my new Chevy has a 110v outlet built in. Drive up, vac and leave. lol


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

Most bucket bee vacs have a removable bucket with screening so the bees can be removed and are not "sealed" in an airtight container. Heat and lack of ventilation would be concerns.


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## RedHalo (Apr 24, 2016)

I watched a you tube video of a guy using a 'Bucket Head' vac from The Home Depot and drilling a hole in the bucket and covering the hole with screen. Using tape to damper the hole down and adjusting vac pressure. I did that and seems pretty good. For 24$ it's worth a try.


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