Escape board is on, how long should I wait?

[VTnewbee]

I put the escape board on my hive yesterday (Thursday) around 4:00 pm.  When should I take off the supers?  I think I remember reading somewhere 48 hours?  Is that what most of you do? 

[Romahawk]

I check mine after a couple of days. Usually I find all the bees are out by then except for a few overweight old drones that seem afraid to enter the narrow channel in the triangle escape boaard. As soon as I lift the escape up off hte supers they also fly away leaving a super that is free of bees.

[VTnewbee]

Thank you!  Hopefully things go as smoothly for me as they do for you.  I guess I'll be doing my first honey harvest ever sometime tomorrow!  :bee:

[Romahawk]

Make sure you check the supers, the trap, and the top to see that there are no spaces at the seams. If there are you will need to put some duct tape on them or the little devils will rob you blind. You will find a super in a couple of days that is not only free of bees but the honey will be gone as well.

[TwT]

I use to just wait 24 hours when using escape boards, most of the time they would only have about 5 bee's left.

[irekkin]

i've been using a leaf blower in the past, with mixed results. could you explain the escape board method in a little more detail. thanks.

[Sparky]

TwT. Do you use a fume board in combination with your escape board or just the board ?

[Bee-Bop]

Here is a pic. of my home made escape board, 24 hours is plenty of time if no brood, bees will not leave brood !!



Bee-Bop

[Sparky]

NICE! looking job, Bee-Bop. What space do you recomend between your inner blocks and between the blocks and outer triange frame ?

[BeeHopper]

Escape Boards or Triangle Boards have worked like a charm for the last 3 years in clearing out supers in 2 days or less, I threw away the stinky stuff  :-D

[Bee-Bop]

Sparkey,

The space between the spacer boards and the backboard & wire is the size of a round pencil, if I remember it is
5/16 in.
The pencil made a good spacer to glue the spacers in, after drying I then also stapled them to the back board, then stapled #8 wire.

The hive board on the top is about 1/8 in. deep, on the bottom the space is about 3/4 in. It seems a little extra space above the bottom frames, helps them to move down. Why I don't know ?

Bee-Bop

[irekkin]

 bee bop, nice job. so you place the escape board under the supers that you want the bees out of, with the wire side down( i assume it works with multiple supers ). also, do any of you folks know of a plan or a drawing that has dimensions that i could print . thanks

[Romahawk]

Here is one from Dave Cushmans site..


One example of an escape board can be found here

[TwT]

TwT. Do you use a fume board in combination with your escape board or just the board ?

no, just fume boards now, I use bee quick, it doesn't stink.