Recently I was asked to look at removing some feral bees from the roof of a house in Devon. Always the one to try and be prepared (whether from a childhood in scouting or a history of parents who liked to say “You can’t do that” who knows but I like to be prepared) I decided to make a Bee Vac. I should also add that my first experience of collecting a swarm was from a commercial wheelie-bin outside our local parish hall. Having shaken a few thousand bees from beer cans and sweet wrappers I did come away thinking a Bee Vac would be a useful tool in the armoury.

Inspiration

Anyway, on to the design. My ideas for the design came from the following image. There are lots of different approaches on the web but for some reason this one stood out.

Modelling prevents expensive mistakes (most of the time).

I have learnt over the years that as someone who has to visualise and see things to learn that modelling in CAD or with numerical data Excel does prevent a lot of errors and mistakes. So we started with a model and some drawings. I also created some handles and a series of access portal parts that could be used to connect pipework to the box.

The following drawings might be helpful to anyone looking to make something for themselves.

The Finished Vac

Other than the parts I 3Dprinted the other hardware such as the clasps came from Amazon/eBay or local hardware stores.

Testing with Pig Feed!

Yup, you read this right – I tested the vac with some handy pig feed. I was able to convince myself that both it would draw the feed up and I could adjust the rate.