This is the whole thing assembled. The top board that takes the vacuum hose is fixed in place as I don't have the equipment to be able to make it slide in and out. I'll make a second top when I get access to some better wood working equipment.
This is where the vacuum hose slots in and where you can adjust the amount of suction.
I'm using household insect mesh under the lid.
Where the business end plugs into.
I'm going to try and use 38mm ID pool hose as its cheap and readily available. This one is 3m long.
Inside the hose. It looks worse than it really is. It is fairly smooth to the touch.
This girl supervised the whole project. Didn't help though.
I gave the vac a bit of a test this after noon on some of my own bees. With the regulator fully open on top, there is just enough suction at the tip to suck in a bee if you give it a nudge or if they have a loose grip.
You'll notice in the pictures that I don't have a cutout shim, this is because I don't have the tools to be able to make something to allow some mesh to slide into. Also we don't have "hardware cloth" readily available that Robo uses. Anything that I have access to isn't ridged enough for the job. I'll have to think up something to use for the job.