Yesterday was my first cut-out. At the end of the day the bee vacuum almost worked, I almost had enough buckets, and generally, things went almost like I wanted them to. Most of the trouble I had was due to lack of experience, as opposed to any real problem. I do have a few questions for those more experience than I am. My biggest problem was the bee vacuum. its a brushkill copy and It seems clear that I need to seal the box seams. There almost no suction at the end of teh suction hose and the bees didn;t care about it one bit. Fortunately, one of the guys that works at the building lived close and got a much larger shop vac. this one, though way bigger than one should ever need, provided just enough suction to pull bees in if they were bumped a little bit by the hose. This worked great for a little while, then we lost suction. The bees clogged up in the suction hose (30' piece of 2" pool hose with a smooth bore) and it became pretty useless. Is this a problem for others? I think it started to clog as i was cutting out comb and honey began making a mess. My plan was to suck bees off one side of comb, cut it, then suck bees off back side of comb, thn lower comb out of hive. perhaps there is a problem with that method.
At any rate, i got 10 deep frames full of brood, almost all capped, and half a bucket full of brood comb that didn't fint into the box. I suspect I did not get the queen, as she would have likely been on brood comb and i had no vacuum by the time i got to that part of the hive. To remove the bees at that point, i used a straigh bucket vac and felt bad for the poor bees getting banged around, but it was either try to suck them up, or spray them. not very many survived the straight bucket vac.
That's a quick rundown of my experience. Any thoughts or criticisms are very welcome.
At any rate, i got 10 deep frames full of brood, almost all capped, and half a bucket full of brood comb that didn't fint into the box. I suspect I did not get the queen, as she would have likely been on brood comb and i had no vacuum by the time i got to that part of the hive. To remove the bees at that point, i used a straigh bucket vac and felt bad for the poor bees getting banged around, but it was either try to suck them up, or spray them. not very many survived the straight bucket vac.
That's a quick rundown of my experience. Any thoughts or criticisms are very welcome.