Building a 50 Buck Bee Vac

I decided today to go ahead and put together a light weight Bee Vacuum I have been reading about. Supposedly with a new product that has come out you can make a bee vac so light weight you can actually haul the thing up into a tree with you.

I have seen reports that you can make these things for under 30 bucks but since Lowes didn't have any extra vacuum hose available I had to buy some pool hose that pretty much doubled my price tag. I also purchased a higher dollar bucket and lid for reasons I will explain later. Oh and I was out of construction adhesive so that added another five bucks on to my price as well.

The main item you will need is the box on the right in the above picture which is a wet/dry vac that sits on top of a five gallon bucket. This one cost me $21.00 at Lowes.

I purchased a higher dollar lid because I had planned on using the hole that came with it rather than attempting to cut through the plastic with a hole saw. It was worth the few extra bucks. I just pulled the soft plastic pour spout out and cut it off. I then put the two pvc/plastic fittings together through the hole. This is the intake hole that the five foot of plastic pipe will go into that the bees will get sucked into the five gallon bucket with.

This fitting is a seven inch piece of pvc pipe I drilled some small holes into that bees can't get sucked into. Using a cap and two smaller fittings I drilled a hole in the lid with a 7/8" paddle bit and inserted then screwed the fittings together. This will be the attachment the suction hose from the vacuum fits into.

This is what the lid of the five gallon "Bee catcher" bucket looks like when it is all together.

And this last picture is the entire thing after I built a light weight carrier out of scrap lumber. It is easily light enough I can pull it up and tie it to the end of my ladder if needed. The bees get sucked into the first bucket but then cannot continue on into the second bucket. This is why I bought a more expensive five gallon bucket for the "Bee Catcher" so I can see just how full the thing is getting.

I will need to play around with a damper opening so that I do not suck the bees up with such force that they get turned into insect purrie or hit the bottom so hard they splatter. I may end up also needing to fit a sock around the pvc pipe intake or something.

The total cost came in at about $45.00 but like I said I kinda added in some features that are not actually necessary.

I guess we will see if I need to actually put the thing through it's paces tomorrow.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!