Bee Vac Accessories

thingiverse

I decided to create a "Bushkill Bee Vac" designed for removing bee hives and swarm removal from buildings. For detailed design and operation information, visit Beesource dot com and search their forums for Bushkill Bee Vac in the sticky thread titled "Building the Bushkill Bee Vac". To enhance versatility, I envisioned using standard hole saws to create one hole with multiple inserts for different shop vac ports on top of this bee vac. The device can accommodate a 1 1/4 vacuum hose from my small shop vac or a 2 1/4 hose from my large shop vac. My goal was to use the quietest shop vac while maintaining enough suction power to gently pull bees through the bottom hose into the hive. Instead of cutting multiple holes for different size shop vacs, I opted for one adaptable hole. The printed parts are made from green PETG, which creates decent threads for the port and screw-in plugs. The top ports allow connection to vacuum sources, while another hole with a plywood square adjusts the working vacuum inside the bee vac. The bottom hole features a sliding door sized for a 25-foot long pool vacuum hose (YMMV), keeping the bee vac away from one's ears when vacuuming honeybees. As bees are vacuumed, they enter the bottom of the vac and then into the middle box, an 8-frame deep Langstroth hive body, where they will live after rescue is completed, excluding the top and bottom parts of the bee vac. When the bottom hose is disconnected, the slide closes to keep the bees inside. Bees cannot escape through the top holes due to a #8 size piece of hardware cloth under the top slideout. The slideout is removed during transportation to prevent overheating.