Apple - Removing spotlight icon from menu bar persistently

This works at least up to 10.9.2.

To disable:

sudo mv /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle.bak
killall SystemUIServer

To re-enable:

sudo mv /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle.bak /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle
killall SystemUIServer

There are a few apps that can remove the icon for you, I used Bartender to check it works in Mountain Lion:

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It will even get rid of Notification Center if you so desire ;)

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