Triangle escape boards

[Understudy]

Since I don't want to go to far off topic in my thin honey thread, I am creating a new one. I looked at the triangle escape board. http://www.betterbee.com/products.asp?dept=1223

Is there a hole in the center of the triangle?

Would this work with a top entrance hive?

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[TwT]

yes there is a hole on the escape board but it will not work as a top entrance (when set on a hive the hole will be at the top and triangle underneath), the thing about bee's is when they enter the triangle from underneath they turn right or left but do not go straight ahead, that will lead them back out of it, that's why is works so well getting bee's out of the supers....

[Robo]

Is there a hole in the center of the triangle?

Yes,  here is a better picture.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/doubleq.html

Would this work with a top entrance hive?

not unless the entrance is below the supers you are trying to clear and the escape board.


The idea is that the only way in our out of the supers is through the escape board and the screened side goes away from the supers you are trying to evacuate.

Just be careful,  they are not bullet proof.   If you set a stack of supers outside with and escape board on top,  the bees WILL figure it out.

I usually remove my supers the day before I'm going to extract and stack them with an escape board on top to clear out the stragglers.   I put a cover over the top, so that the bees can come thru the escape board and be trapped between it and the top cover,  but robber bees can't get in.  The next day I just remove the cover and escape board with the trapped bees.   A night light between the trap board and cover helps lure the bees out of the super.

[TwT]

I put mine on 2 days before extracting, every know and them I might have a few bee's left in the supers but most of the time it will be less than 10

[Understudy]

I am just thinking here.

I could remove the supers from the hive. Place them on the stand next to the hive. Place a flat cover on top and a triangle escape board on the bottom. The bees come out fly back into their hive. I come home and take empty supers in for extraction. How does that sound?


Sincerely,
Brendhan

[TwT]

never tried it, works fine on the hive, try it out, might work like the dusk method  :-D :-P ,  i think it is best to have it on the hive, its more protected then, if you get a arm of bee's trying to get in and the screened triangle is exposed they might get in in numbers, robbers just go crazy, existing hive dont....

[Jerrymac]

Perhaps rig it up so you have your main hive on the bottom (as you do now) a newly designed entrance on top, the triangle on top of that, and finally the supers needing vacating on top of that. Just requires more engineering and building.

[Michael Bush]

I use two.  I set one on a bottom board and stack the supers on it and put one on top.  Both facing so the triangles are away from the supers and the round hole is toward the super, of course.  I sometimes stack supers from several hives on one stack.

[Yarra_Valley]

I remove the supers, replace the hive cover, stack the super on top, and place the escape board on top of that. Apparantly this way its harder for them to smell the queen and they clear better. well that's what I've heard. Anyway, it works fine.

My escape boards are similar, but have four holes, one in each corner, with are similar one way mechanism. I like the look of these triangle ones however.

James.

[Yarra_Valley]

Thinking about it, it would be asking a lot for four or five deeps of bees to squish down into two, if I was to put the escape board between the brood deeps and supers as some do. If I put the escape boards on the top as described in the above post, they actually have room to get out of the super before attempting to get back into the main hive entrance. So perhaps the reason it works better for me has nothing to do with queen pheromone.

James.