Friday, September 14, 2012

A Beekeeper's Best Helper - a Bee Escape Board

The next best thing to have in the bee yard, besides a beekeeper friend to help, is a Bee Escape Board.

This simple board is designed with a small triangular maze on one side and a simple round hole on the other.

The clever idea of this contraption is that you slip it underneath a full honey super that you would like to remove.

How do you place it on the hive?  The round hole goes facing up under the super.  When the bees exit the hive they leave the box by going through the round hole.  As they come down there are three straight paths of the maze underneath that they exit through.

Later when the bee wants to return to the super and she tries to go up she won't be able to figure out how to get into the super.

Your job is to be sure to return the next day (24 hours later) to remove the super.

During that 24 hours most of the bees in the super will exit the box.  They especially will go down into the hive if the nights are cool because they'll want to cluster.

I do find if the nights are warmer that not as many bees will exit the super but using the escape board is still worth it to reduce the number of bees that will need to be swept off the frames.

Later when the bees want to travel back up into the supers they're faced with the maze which is too complex for them to figure out.


If you wait longer than 24 hours to return though the bees will have discovered where the entrances are to the maze and will travel back up into the supers.  So timing is important.

My success with this has been great.  Even on hives where most of the bees didn't exit (a warm night for example) there are still many less bees to sweep off the frames than there would be otherwise.

So be sure to add bee escapes to your list of bee equipment to get.

6 comments:

Christopher said...

I have not used these before, but the pictures of the bees clustered on the bottom side, trying to figure out how to return back through the escape is pretty convincing. :)

Did you buy or build your escape board? I'd be interested in a copy of the plans if you built it yourself.


Bee Magic Chronicles for Kids said...

Hi Christopher. No I didn't make the escape board. You can get them from Oxford Honey & Supplies in Burgessville, ON. Most major bee suppliers will sell them.

I have found that even if it's a cold night if there's some brood on the frames in the super the bees won't leave.

Anonymous said...

Great article! Thank you! Does the escape board replace the queen exluder or is the EB added above the QE? Thank you!

Sarah said...

I left a honey super on this past Winter. I have the board and want to use it. If the queen happened to be in the super (took the excluder off in the winter) would she be able to fit. I have two deeps as well...maybe she stayed down there?

Bee Magic Chronicles for Kids said...

Hi Sarah. If I understand you left a super on for the winter and removed the queen excluder (which is good). I believe that a queen should be able to find her way or be escorted out of a super through and escape board if one was on the hive. Generally if it's spring/summer and there's a honey flow going the queen would tend to stay down in the brood area and wouldn't likely be in the super. If it's winter and you left that on for extra honey she might be in there but so would the main cluster of bees.
I hope this answers your question.

Sarah said...

Thanks Barbara. I put it on yesterday. Will check it 24 hours. Thank you.