Swarm Bucket - light, strong, easy, and free

[David LaFerney]

So easy, I made it between finding the swarm and catching it.

[Northwest PA Beekeeper]

Interesting. How long of pole is it mounted on and what ind of pole? What is the white thing attached to it? Do you have a lid for it?

[Rader Sidetrack]

The "white thing" wrapped around the center post is a wire tie or cable tie, originally designed used to strap together a bundle of wires, but useful for many other tasks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_tie
They are readily available at places that sell hardware items.

[David LaFerney]

Yep - wire tie. 40 years ago it probably would have been baling wire. The pole is a paint roler extension handle, but pretty much anything would work - broom handle, one of those fiberglass cane poles (maybe) or a good piece of bamboo.

It's just for getting the swarm from up in a tree - then you pour them right into a catch box - no lid needed.

[Michael Bush]

Maybe it's too early in the morning for me... I can't picture how the block of wood inside and the tie are related to anything. They don't hold the bucket on do they? Do they stabilize it in some way? What is under the bucket to keep it from sliding down the pole?

[Rader Sidetrack]

There are a couple of loose screws sitting near the bucket. That suggests that screws thru the bucket sides into the wood secure the bucket. The cable tie is to stop the pole from coming out of the wood piece when the bucket is not vertical.

[Michael Bush]

I see. That makes sense.

[David LaFerney]

That is exactly it. Sorry, I was going on the "a picture is worth a 1000 words" theory. A drywall screw through each side holds the cross piece in, and the hole in the wood is too small for it to slide down past the threads on the paint extension handle. If you were using conduit or something without a shoulder you would need to make a stop of some kind - a protruding screw, or a few wraps of tape. This works great and can be cobbled up very quickly.

[SteveBee]

That's nice, David. Here's one I made with the bucket attached from the outside through a swiveling bracket.

http://honeysunapiary.wordpress.com/...tching-bucket/
http://honeysunapiary.wordpress.com/news/

[Charlie B]

SteveBee,

Now that is genius. When you lower the pole, the bucket swivels and stays upright. Why didn't I think of that? I'm making one today, nice.

Thank you!

[David LaFerney]

That's pretty cool Steve. The simple one that I made worked great for the particular swarm that I had at the time:



... Because I had to scrape them off of the branch with the rim. It was also pretty good to be able to dump them in the catch box from the other end of the pole. But I can see that if you had a more spherical swarm the swivel function would let you get them without catching a face full of bees - if you could lock it in position yours would work great either way. Yours definitely earns more style points than mine does.

Nice web site too.

[SteveBee]

David,

You're right about having the bucket stationary for bee-scraping. That's quite a swarm in your picture. I think I'll drill a small hole in my metal angle and line it up with a hole in the bucket. That way, I could pin or un-pin my bucket for the swarm at hand.

[Adam Foster Collins]

Nice stuff. I like learning about peoples' inventions.

I have also seen them made using a big water cooler plastic bottle, which is nice because you can see through it...

Adam

[David LaFerney]

David,

You're right about having the bucket stationary for bee-scraping. That's quite a swarm in your picture.

It would have been way better if it had come out of someone elses hive. Glad I caught it though. Would have been hard to get without the bucket.

[reneal]

I made one, but went with duct tape. I cut about a foot & a half off the flange end of a piece of plastic conduit and then duct taped this piece to the side of a 5 gallon bucket with the flange pointing down. This way I could used the rest of the length of conduit and just slip it into the flange. If I wanted more height, just use a second piece of conduit, although it gets pretty floppy when you're using nearly 20 ft of conduit. I guess a larger diameter conduit would add stiffness, but the weight adds up pretty fast. I usually just strap 3 frames together & try to get a rope over the limb if its really high.