Here’s a memory triggered by Zweefer’s post on buying a Bee Vac.
When we started out with bees, we watched all kinds of bee videos on YouTube. And of course there were a lot of people showing off their skills at collecting bees from other people’s homes. So, I thought it I might join the cool kids.
I built my own with a small, cheap shop vac and leftover lumber. The seal around the motor wasn’t great, but that’s okay. Bee vacs aren’t supposed to suck with a lot of power are they? We want gentle suction so we don’t hurt the bees!
Bee vac built, name on the hive removal list, and all I had to do was wait.
Then I got lucky when a friend asked me to help his neighbor get rid of some bees in his house. The friend wanted to be a beekeeper too, and thought this would be a great way to start.
It’s a good thing the homeowner is a carpenter. I told them beforehand that they would be responsible for opening the eaves and doing the repairs afterwards.
What I didn’t know was that my homemade vac was too leaky and that my friend was an admirer of Tim the Toolman (More Power!).
I was able to get everyone suited up, lit my smoker, turned on the vac and headed up the ladder to the opening in the eaves that my friends had made.
Back down the ladder to relight my smoker.
This is where I started to lose control. My friend grabbed his blow torch and got a nice hot fire going. After the smoker cooled down enough to handle, I headed back up the ladder. I vacuumed for a while and cut out comb, handing down to be placed in a cooler.
Then I looked down and saw the homeowner’s small dog running in circles. I barked my instructions and homeowner’s wife took the poor dog inside.
In the meantime the bees were backing further into the house. I could barely reach them with my vacuum.
My friend decided I needed more suction. While I was busy cutting off more comb, he took the motor off, decided the filter was the problem and removed it.
I went back to trying to do more vacuuming with a little more success. Success until ...
Hey, the bees aren’t supposed to be crawling back out of the hose, are they?
We opened the vacuum and found the motor was crammed with dead bees.
It was time to stop, anyway I rationalized.
We dumped the remaining bees in a box, rubber banded some of the comb onto frames, and put the box on top of a ladder to see if the remaining bees would go in the box or the bees in the box would leave.
I went back to check on the bees the next morning. The good news is, there were no more bees in the house. Mission accomplished.
The bad news? No bees in the hive box, either.
This wasn’t the one that helped me decide to not do cutouts. But it was a contributing factor.
