# Amount of Vacuum



## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

Not particularly slick, just feeling the end of the suction hose and watching the bees being suctioned. Just enough to lift them off the comb if they're moving and not ripping them off if they're holding on.


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## The Walker (Sep 28, 2016)

Eikel said:


> Not particularly slick, just feeling the end of the suction hose and watching the bees being suctioned. Just enough to lift them off the comb if they're moving and not ripping them off if they're holding on.


:thumbsup:


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## The Everything Bee Vacuum (May 1, 2018)

Nearly everyone uses too much vacuum the first time and kill most of the bees. We kick ourselves, and back off from there. You can work faster with more vacuum & have lots of dead bees or work slowly and kill none. Experience (and a mentor!) will be far more valuable than a vacuum gauge.

This is why I have the control knob I clip on my chest to adjust the vacuum pressure. Usually I run at around 50% speed. If I get a clog, I kick up the vacuum to clear it in a few seconds then slow down again. But that's how my vacuum works (see my vendor page).


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## The Walker (Sep 28, 2016)

The Everything Bee Vacuum said:


> Nearly everyone uses too much vacuum the first time and kill most of the bees. We kick ourselves, and back off from there. You can work faster with more vacuum & have lots of dead bees or work slowly and kill none. Experience (and a mentor!) will be far more valuable than a vacuum gauge.
> This is why I have the control knob I clip on my chest to adjust the vacuum pressure. Usually I run at around 50% speed. If I get a clog, I kick up the vacuum to clear it in a few seconds then slow down again. But that's how my vacuum works (see my vendor page).


So I looked at your website (Is this your vendor's page?) and your profile. It says that you're an engineer..... 
I can appreciate the portability factor of your unit, but I'll stick with mine...
And back to the engineering part, what kind of engineer are you? My career was as an electrical engineer in an R&D environment.... While experience is not being questioned here, I do question whether you really know much about vacuums or pressures.. To say that you run your system at 50% is meaningless. 50% of what? Your motor speed? Kicking it up to ??? to clear clogs... Real engineering working within realm of hydraulics and or pneumatics have actual ranges of PSI or IOM that they want to achieve for proper operation of a given system whether it be the air conditioner in your car or cooling the front end of a guidance section of an air to air missile. They simply don't say well we'll going to run at 50% of some motor control.
While I won't argue with you over experience, I would suggest you use a vacuum gauge (They are actually pretty useful) to see what kind of vacuum your pulling at 50% and if your unit is capable of acting as a blower, you might want to know what kind of pressure it's capable of too... This kind of information could come in handy some day!
I would also point out that not every bee group have folks that would be qualified as mentors... It would be nice... But not always the case.
Just my two cents worth...
BTW Do you happen to know what kind of vacuum you're pulling at 50%???


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## The Everything Bee Vacuum (May 1, 2018)

Good questions.

My degree is Computer & Electrical Engineering, graduating from Purdue back in '88 with additional MSCS work at University of Miami (moved before completing that degree). My first few years was working at IBM in their PC division and PowerPC group before moving to other companies. Over the decades I've done everything from circuit board design, product development, programming, electromagnetics, even thermal work.

I try to keep things simple. When I say 50%, I mean where you dial the knob and not a true 50% power level. To ask vacuum pressure, there are too many variables. In the container? At the end of the hose? With how many bees in the container or in the hose? And at what charge level on the battery? And all of that will change if you used a 3" hose instead of the 1.5" hose, or a 10' hose instead of the 6 ft hose. 

But that's not what's important. What really matters is how well does it work. I find in doing cutouts I have near zero dead bees in the vacuum when run in the 50-60% range and that is sufficient suction to easily capture the colony. If you run it at full speed, it'll be 80% dead bees. You won't have losses running at full speed for a few seconds to clear the hose, but not continuously. All of these various features are the result of hundreds of hours of my time testing and optimizing the design. I'm not interested in sharing all of these lessons for free, my time is worth something.

BTW, it does not function as a blower. That really won't help to move the bees.


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## The Walker (Sep 28, 2016)

The Everything Bee Vacuum said:


> Good questions.
> 
> My degree is Computer & Electrical Engineering, graduating from Purdue back in '88 with additional MSCS work at University of Miami (moved before completing that degree). My first few years was working at IBM in their PC division and PowerPC group before moving to other companies. Over the decades I've done everything from circuit board design, product development, programming, electromagnetics, even thermal work.
> 
> ...


Good Answers!
We have similar backgrounds... I spent my time developing weapon systems and product improvements for the military.... In the evenings I taught classes in electronics and computer science at our local community college..
And you are correct, there are number of variables... I.e. hose length, hose diameter, etc.... But I think that it would still be helpful to know what the vacuum should be at the end of whatever diameter and length of hose you sell with your machine... Even in the Marine Corps there were standards of an entity's ability to suck a tennis ball through a garden hose. 
As mentioned earlier, not every person, that might buy your beevac, is going to have a mentor to help and there are probably more than a few self proclaimed experts out there! And as the battery, when it does start to drain, trying to maintain that correct vacuum would be helpful. But if it's like many other battery operated tools, when the battery starts to go, it won't be long before you have to stop and replace them anyway. Do you use battery packs and just swap batteries out?
Cut-outs are fun? I'm not sure that I would call them all fun, but I do enjoy the challenge... A background in construction has been helpful too!
I do carry a 2KW Generator as part of my tool kit which works well and by switching hoses around I can use mine as a blower as there are times I find it helpful during some of my clean-ups.
It would be nice to try out your unit, but I am of the "If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it." mentality! so maybe when mine breaks I'll contact you! LOL
Good luck with your unit! I always appreciate the entrepreneurs in the world!!
Chuck Lewis
Ronan, MT


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## The Everything Bee Vacuum (May 1, 2018)

Thank you Chuck.

Cutouts are like physics classes. The vast majority of people absolutely hated their physics class, or never took it. I remember physics classes where the average score was 25 out of 100. I was one of those... it just made sense to me. The prof threw out my scores when he made the curve.

Same thing with cutouts. I absolutely love doing them. The 100F daily heat here in TX stops me from doing many more, but it's a thrill to me. Yes, a challenge as well. But every aspect of it is good... I help someone out who has a problem (many of my cutouts I consider part of my ministry). I usually get a healthy colony in the end. I get to tear something apart and not worry about fixing it (not that I maximize damage). Being part of the ministry (and I don't charge much if any often), the cleanup all goes to the homeowner!

I wish you all the best.
Tony


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## mcr (May 5, 2018)

I'm playing with one similer to the Everything Bee Vac as I wanted something lighter than boxes, generator, extension cords, ect. I made mine where
I can change buckets if it's a large cutout. My first attempts using a vacuum cleaner motor altered to run on 12 to 20 volts didn't pull enough vacuum but make a great cooling vac for the bees. I have no degree but one of tinkering with stuff ( from building trailers, tube chassis race cars, super glue cabinet for fingerprints, barns,house, Top Bar Hive with frames). I like looking at an item and then building it myself probably costing me more in the long run. Plus I like hearing what works and what doesn't. My brother has built a vac that wieghs 60 to 70 lbs. that uses a shop vac and 110 volts that he is happy with.


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## The Walker (Sep 28, 2016)

mcr said:


> I'm playing with one similer to the Everything Bee Vac as I wanted something lighter than boxes, generator, extension cords, ect. I made mine where I can change buckets if it's a large cutout. My first attempts using a vacuum cleaner motor altered to run on 12 to 20 volts didn't pull enough vacuum but make a great cooling vac for the bees. I have no degree but one of tinkering with stuff ( from building trailers, tube chassis race cars, super glue cabinet for fingerprints, barns,house, Top Bar Hive with frames). I like looking at an item and then building it myself probably costing me more in the long run. Plus I like hearing what works and what doesn't. My brother has built a vac that wieghs 60 to 70 lbs. that uses a shop vac and 110 volts that he is happy with.


Brother, you don't need a degree to make an idea work.... Sometimes an education just gets in the way. My box probably weighs in at close to 50 lbs. It's nothing that I going to throw over my shoulder and climb up a ladder with. But so far it has worked for me.
Engineers usually like to play with details like numbers. I would personally like to know how much of a vacuum it takes to lift the body of a bee off a piece of comb. 
Here's a true story. I worked with a physicist that was ranked as one of the top 10 in the world when it came to guidance systems of air-to-air missiles. One year they decided to go and cut down their own Christmas tree. (From a tree farm ~ we lived in the desert) After they got it up and decorated, they invited me over to see it. It was indeed a beautiful tree and decorated very nicely, however it was missing 18" of the top. I asked them why and they told me that it was too tall for their room and the top hit their ceiling.
Most folks would know to cut the bottom off, but in their minds the problem was at the top of the tree... Not the bottom.
We all have strong suits... It's wonderful if we know what they are and can play them to our advantage!!!
Semper Fi


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## The Everything Bee Vacuum (May 1, 2018)

The Walker said:


> My box probably weighs in at close to 50 lbs.


That works until your back doesn't! We all make due with what we have. I just offer a complete system that makes the work part of cutouts far easier. I started with the same 50 lb system. I made it, I was proud of it, and it actually did the job. And I fully understand the many guys who say that dropping $300 is not needed when they have something that works. That's true for every guy who's doing just a few cutouts each year. 

But for anyone who's doing 5,10, 50 cutouts a year, at some point you should look at what is your time worth. If you're doing even just 10 cutouts each year, you're doing an extra 20 or 30 minutes of work with each cutout due to that 50 lb vacuum. That's 3-5 hours of extra time. And if you are billing for the cutout work, you can't charge under $50/hour, and most guys are in the $100 per hour rate. That means this vacuum pays for itself the first year. I've had customers who've told me this vacuum paid for itself in the first 2 weeks.

Your story reminds of the difference between a civil engineer and a mechanical engineer. One builds structures to live and work in. The other builds the weapon systems to destroy those structures.


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## The Walker (Sep 28, 2016)

The Everything Bee Vacuum said:


> That works until your back doesn't! We all make due with what we have. I just offer a complete system that makes the work part of cutouts far easier. I started with the same 50 lb system. I made it, I was proud of it, and it actually did the job. And I fully understand the many guys who say that dropping $300 is not needed when they have something that works. That's true for every guy who's doing just a few cutouts each year.
> 
> But for anyone who's doing 5,10, 50 cutouts a year, at some point you should look at what is your time worth. If you're doing even just 10 cutouts each year, you're doing an extra 20 or 30 minutes of work with each cutout due to that 50 lb vacuum. That's 3-5 hours of extra time. And if you are billing for the cutout work, you can't charge under $50/hour, and most guys are in the $100 per hour rate. That means this vacuum pays for itself the first year. I've had customers who've told me this vacuum paid for itself in the first 2 weeks.
> 
> Your story reminds of the difference between a civil engineer and a mechanical engineer. One builds structures to live and work in. The other builds the weapon systems to destroy those structures.


Time is money! No doubt... But the biggest consumption of time is not the vacuuming of bees, but the time it takes to get into where the bees are!!! Driving to the site... The demolition if you'd like to call it that, to get into where they are nesting. And the removing of the comb.
I personally don't charge $$$ to remove the bees. The bees themselves are the payment I receive. And I also clean up and replace what I have disassembled too!
You spoke of ministries, Tony.... I understand that! My ministry are for wounded and disabled military veterans... I call it "Plan Bee". I use the extraction process and bees from caught swarms, trap-outs and cut-outs as learning tools for these veterans to teach and take their minds away from the issues our military/government has left them with. Time is not an issue when teaching.
You mentioned that you are a EE and worked for IBM.... As a double E myself, I worked on weapon systems which generally wreaked of death and destruction... Not all Double E's are created equal or work in the same disciplines... Neither do "Mechanical" engineers... 
As for Civil Engineers, I don't know much about them other than to agree with you on the building of structures. 
Your analogy may be closer to bees and beekeepers... At least the ones that do cut-outs!


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## The Everything Bee Vacuum (May 1, 2018)

The Walker said:


> . As a double E myself, I worked on weapon systems which generally wreaked of death and destruction...


I think of it in the exact opposite way. Weapon systems prevent death and destruction. I liked how Reagan said it, "Peace through strength." Yes, every once in a while you need to use them. But I think weapon systems have lead to less death than more. Yes, way off topic.

You have a great idea. I think BK would be a great way to deal with PTSD. You'd think the opposite: 100's of thousands of bees trying to kill the guy would trigger PTSD. But hey, if the guy needs to de-stress: go ahead & knock 1000 bees off a frame. No big deal! And I bet our soldiers appreciate the honesty of the bees: they always communicate what they're going to do well in advance. And many disabilities really don't matter in a bee yard.


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## The Walker (Sep 28, 2016)

The Everything Bee Vacuum said:


> I think of it in the exact opposite way. Weapon systems prevent death and destruction. I liked how Reagan said it, "Peace through strength." Yes, every once in a while you need to use them. But I think weapon systems have lead to less death than more. Yes, way off topic.
> 
> You have a great idea. I think BK would be a great way to deal with PTSD. You'd think the opposite: 100's of thousands of bees trying to kill the guy would trigger PTSD. But hey, if the guy needs to de-stress: go ahead & knock 1000 bees off a frame. No big deal! And I bet our soldiers appreciate the honesty of the bees: they always communicate what they're going to do well in advance. And many disabilities really don't matter in a bee yard.


Reagan had it correct... Johnson, Nixon, McNamarra and General Westmoreland missed the memo.... Doesn't sound like you were in Vietnam....
It does give the Veterans a chance to do something out of the ordinary... Thinking about how to get into some structure "Peacefully" to access and remove a colony of bees (Blowing it up, simply isn't the best choice)... The Classroom aspects of learning... And the end of the season harvest of honey and wax... Bottling and candle making... to provide funding for the program... 
If a veteran completes the program, aside from what they've learned, the program also provides them with their own hive and colony of bees for them to take home..
Call it Marine humor, but if a vet's mind starts to wander while handling bees, crushes one and is stung by it or others it will bring them back to the present... I like to think of it as "Bee Here Now!"


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## The Everything Bee Vacuum (May 1, 2018)

I was too young to comprehend what was going on with Vietnam.



The Walker said:


> Thinking about how to get into some structure "Peacefully" to access and remove a colony of bees (Blowing it up, simply isn't the best choice)..."


Stop! I almost choked laughing. But with how aggressive colonies are around me (AHB), there is no such thing as 'peaceful' access.



The Walker said:


> Call it Marine humor, but if a vet's mind starts to wander while handling bees, crushes one and is stung by it or others it will bring them back to the present... I like to think of it as "Bee Here Now!"


There's a similar term I like, "Stupid should hurt immediately". It doesn't work for most of the younger generation, but soldiers will get it. I'd rather have a little pain now and correct my ways than suffer immensely years later. And with bees, it's always something simple. Now it might take the not-as-smart BK (me) a while to get past the complicated & get to the simple, but it's up to the BK to get smarter and get back to simple.


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