Getting Ready For Honey (The Bucket)
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Honey supplies can sometimes be really expensive. For example, a honey bucket with a gate (or what most people would call a spout) at the bottom, usually starts at around $35.00 if you buy them from the bee suppliers. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see paying that kind of money for a $3.00 bucket with a $4.00 gate installed on it. That said, we built our own. Our bucket came from Wal-Mart ($2.98) and our gate we bought on-line ($4.00 with free shipping).
Armed with a hole saw on my drill, I measured on the inside of the bucket just high enough to give clearance to the nut that screwed to the gate on the inside of the bucket. I poked a hole all the way through the bucket in the exact location where the drill bit on the hole saw was to go. I put the bit in the punched hole, gave the trigger on the drill a squeeze and had a perfect hole ready to receive the gate. The walls were so thin, it only took about 3 seconds.
The rest was really easy. All I had to do was to just put the yoke of the gate through the hole and secure the nut on the inside of the bucket. It was at that time that I realized that while I did take an accurate measurement, I did not allow for the nut to rotate on the inside of the bucket. To remedy this, I simply put the nut in place inside the bucket and then screwed the gate to the nut. All done. A $7.00 bucket with a honey gate.