That $150 bee vacuum I bought off a YouTube recommendation

Saw a guy on YouTube make it look dead simple to catch a swarm with this special bee vacuum. Ordered one for $150 on a whim. First swarm I tried it on, the suction was way too weak and the bees just sat there. Second time the collection chamber got jammed up with dead bees and I ended up just using a cardboard box like normal. Lesson learned, don't believe the edited videos. Anybody else get burned by a niche tool that looked good online?

2 comments

2 Comments

adams.harper1d ago

Mine was a $200 model that had the same exact issues. I replaced the stock hose with a 2-inch dryer vent hose for fifteen bucks and glued a mesh screen over the filter intake, and that thing pulls swarms like a dream now.

parker_jones502d ago

Wait, did you try adjusting the suction power at all? A lot of those bee vacs come with a variable speed setting that you gotta mess with depending on the swarm size and how feisty the bees are. Also the collection chamber jamming up usually means the intake hose is too small or you're sucking up too many drones at once. Most guys I know who use those things swear by them but they mod them first with a bigger hose and a better filter. You might've just gotten a dud model or skipped a step in the setup.