Bee vaccum Part 3

All done, well almost, I ran out of weather stripping. There is nothing worse than having to run to the store in the middle of a project. Besides I am not using it tonight anyway. This part is what the website refers to as the shim. Once you get the bees vaccumed into the super, you have to take care of all the brood comb. This enables you to have a screen on top of the bees while you add another super on top to put the brood. You get empty frames and a bunch of rubber bands or string, but rubber bands work better in my opinion. As you cut the brood comb out you put it in empty frames using the rubber bands to hold the comb in the frames. When your top super is full and you have the hive in its new location you can pull the screen out and let the girls reunite with their babies.
I want to Thank this website for the awesome idea of this bee vacuum, once a again it was their idea, I just built it and passed it along.http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/bee-vac.

I started off with 1x2 cut to fit the super.

I ripped a channel down the center to except the screen.

The front was a little tricking I ended up cutting the front piece in half and then ripping it a little bit so the screen can come through the front. Glue and nailed everything.

The website said to use #8 hardware cloth, I could only find 1/4" or 1/2", I picked 1/4" thinking bees use 3/8" in their hives, I doubled it over anyway and made sure the holes were kind of crossed to make them smaller.

I left some hang out for easy pulling.

Here it is on the hive.

Here it is all assembled.

I was getting much suction with it all together. It may not be meant to use this way. But don't forget I am missing weather stripping. The front where the hardware cloth goes in, had a lot of air escaping. I may have made that channel to big. I took the second super off, and used some old fashion duct tape where the hardware cloth goes in and it works fine. I may get some latches and latch the shim on the bottom box and run it that way, then when it comes to the brood comb, I can take the top off add the super for brood and that shim won't move while I add the super.

Just a side view. I hope this helps some body out, when I get to use it, I will update every one. Thanks following along.