Subject: Bee vacuum

From: [email-masked] (Glen Calhoun)
Date: 9 Jun 1995 11:23:22 GMT

Does anyone have plans for a bee vacuum? I have seen them offered commercially,
but have not run across plans for a home made system. I need a system that will
not injury the bees.

Thanks in advance.
Glen
[email-masked]

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From: "Victor C. Rimkus" <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Jun 1995 16:43:01 GMT

[email-masked] (Aaron Morris) wrote:

> Aaron Morris - I have a question.

Will this bee vacuum remove bees from building walls where only a
small opening exists? I'm turning away a lot of bees because the
property owners want the bees out now but don't want the wall taken
apart. The escape hatch method is not feasible for most of the built
in bee colonies I've recieved calls on and is less than reliable.

Any help would be appriciated by me and these bees doomed for
extermination.

	Thanks from the high mountains of New Mexico,

				Victor

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From: [email-masked] (Aaron Morris)
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 95 10:24:34 EDT

>but have not run across plans for a home made system. I need a system that will
 
I have seen and used bee vacuums that have used shop vacs, gasoline bee
blowers, and leaf blowers as the engines to create the necessary
suction.  Unfortunately I have no plans, but I will describe what should
be an easy piece of equipment for a moderately skilled carpenter to
build.
 
The equipment has three basic parts: the engine, the hoses, and the
containment boxes.  The engine (as already stated) can be a standard
shop vac or leaf blower or bee blower, depending on what one has readily
available.  If you have to buy an engine the shop vac is the most versatile
and can be used for many other purposes besides sucking bees.
 
It's the containment boxes that are the neatest part of this equipment,
and consist of a box within a box.  The interior box is a "standard"
bee shipping cage (the screened boxes used to ship packages of bees).
The exterior box is built with a hinged top so it may be opened up to
receive the shipping cage.  The top of the exterior box has a hole cut
into it to receive the suction hose, which can be a vacuum hose or vinyl
swimming pool hose or any readily available hose sufficiently large to
suck in the bees (3/8 inch garden hose will not work!).  The hole in the
top of the exterior box should be cut so that it is directly over the hole
in the interior shipping cage, so when the bees are vacuumed they are
sucked into the shipping cage.  The inside bottom of the shipping cage
can be padded with foam rubber to soften the blow to the bees.
 
There are two more holes in the exterior box.  One hole accommodates the
hose that goes from the box to the suction engine, and the other hole is
used to regulate the suction force of the vacuum.  If the regulator hole
is covered with a piece of metal (perhaps the top of a tin can) the size
of the hole can be adjusted so that the vacuum force on the intake hose
can also be adjusted so the force is enough to suck the bees in, but not
so great that the suction harms the bees.  The fittings for all the
hoses are PVC fittings that can be purchased in the plumbing section of
any hardware store.  The top fitting should extend into the interior
shipping cage to ensure that the bees are sucked into the shipping cage
rather than ending up between the exterior and interior box.  The exterior
box and fittings should be as air tight as possible, so that the suction
can be regulated by increasing or decreasing the size of the regulator hole.
 
Such an aparatus, once built, can be used to suck the bees into a
shipping cage, can be adjusted for a wide variety of suction engines,
and when one is finished vacuuming the bees, you simply open up the
exterior box, put a cover on the shipping cage and take your "package"
of bees and hive it as you would hive a purchased package of bees.
 
Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!

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From: [email-masked] (Beth Nixon)
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 14:41:25 AST

I need help with a problem at my church.  

There is what appears to be a fairly large colony of bees in the wall of the
church, with an entrance in the frame around a window.  The entrance is 30
feet in the air.  These bees have been there for at least a year.

We think we could get the majority out with a lot of work and staging, but
after explaining the long proccess (bee escape over the entrance & another
hive that would be visible to neighbours in the residential area), and that
the comb would still be there to attract a swarm, or make a mess, this doesn't
seem feasible. Would a bee vacumn work or would there be to much brood
remaining especially at this time of year?

A member of church vestry suggested going up this winter on a cold day (We are
in New Brunswick, Canada where tempertures go well below 0)  and pulling the
wall apart and lifting the swarm of bees and all the comb out of the wall. 
Has anyone tried this before?  It would fix the problem in one day's work as
you can kill the queen.  This could probably be done in the summer if you were
killing the bees, but the freezing temperature might make them a little more
cooperative, and there would be fewer of them, and not as much risk of leaving
brood for the others to return to and raise a queen. Or would it even be
possible with a lot of work to hive the cluster in a chamber that had a few
frames of honey and empty space in the middle for the cluster?

This all seems like a very interesting challenge, probably not worth the work,
but I'd like to try it anyway!!!   Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly
appreciated,  perhaps there is a quicker way to move the bees out, besides
killing them!

Thanks in advance!

Beth Nixon
Stone Brook Products
Penobsquis, NB
Canada

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From: [email-masked] (Peter Amschel )
Date: 16 Jun 1995 03:35:41 GMT

>	Thanks from the high mountains of New Mexico,

Mike the Beekeeper says to pound on the wall and locate the place where 
the buzzing noise comes up. Then convince the owner that this area is 
right where they are. He says it should be just about 1 square foot 
around the area where you hear the most buzzing. He says that you can 
then cut the wall neatly right at that point and put the same plug back 
in after you have taken out all the bees and honey.
His number is 909-767-0854 in the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains 
of Aguanga California