Bee Vacuum Video
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- My DIY Bee Vacuum based on a cordless RYOBI leaf blower, a 5 gallon pail and 3D parts of my own design
The Ryobi leaf blower cost me $20 off of Kijiji and the bucket was $3.00.
The 3D printed parts were either designed by me from scratch (e.g. the adapter ring parts) or modified from some 2-1/4" dust collection blast gate parts I downloaded from Thingiverse.com. I figure I used about $15 worth of filament for the final parts but considering the number of failed prototypes, I spent more than that to get to a workable solution. All parts were printed using PLA as I had it on hand and it's quite cheap. I could have used more expensive and more robust filaments but at least so far I haven't seen a real need.
The most expensive part of the build was the 2-1/2" dust collection hose purchased, appropriately, from Busy Bee Tools. I cost me almost $40 but I really like the fact that the inside is smooth (not perfect but quite close enough) and I can see through the sides to see if any bees are stuck in the tube.
I had originally planned on adding some sort of screened/adjustable opening(s) so I could reduce the power at the end of the vacuum hose in order to not cause the bees any more grief than needed. However, once everything was made and the build complete, a combination of a fairly weak vacuum off of the blower plus loose fits between some of the parts, resulted in a gentle suction that seems to cause the bees no noticeable grief.
I haven't used the bee vac yet to gather any large quantity of bees from a swarm but at least so far it's amazing for catching up the stragglers of a swarm/hive move. I'm very pleased and I'll never attend a swam again without it in the trunk of the car, just in case.
The only design feature that I'd like to incorporate, and I will if I can figure out how to make it all fit, is to have both the blower mounting and the hose connection on the pail lid. This would allow me to move the vacuum working bits from one pail to another if I had a lot of bees to collect t and I wanted to use more than one pail. Space is tight but I might be able to figure this out if I have the time and inclination in the future.
What happened to the volume .?
Good question. I have to jack the volume up on my own Mac to hear what I'm saying. I don't recall the volume being that low but I can't be sure it it's always been that way.