bee escape

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Here’s a honey super (the box on top), almost sealed up. It’s rigged so the bees can get out of it, but not into it. This is the box with the curvy comb that I want to take the honey out of:

Setting up the bee escape and waiting for a few days allows the beekeeper to come back and take the box of honey without having to shake out the bees and piss them off. Or use a bee brush on the frames, which I can’t do anyway since the comb is not actually in the individual frames. It’s kind of meandering through the honey super. So I need a bee escape. And I need to go check it soon, since it’s been on there for a bit.

Here’s a pic of the escape:

The large holes have screens on them, in case you can’t see it. The white ovals with holes are where the bees can exit through to the bottom super and then are not able to get back up. Here’s why:

This is one of the plastic parts taken apart. Inside it has little metal bits that allow the bee to get out but then it can’t pry them apart from the other direction to get back into the honey super. Kind of like a lobster trap.

Anyway, hopefully you’ll be hearing more soon about getting the honey from the honey super!

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