1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE.! 



815 



ter springs, or traps of any kind, she will usually 

 make two or three attempts before passing 

 through. Even in my escape, where there Is 

 ample room, they often hesitate in passing 

 through. There is yet plenty of time to try 

 my plan this season, and I shall be pleased to 

 hear reports. There is no patent on it, and it 

 infringes no one's rights. 

 Milan, 111. 



[See answer to the next article for footnote 

 to this.— Ed.] 



MULTIPLE -EXIT BEE-ESCAPE NO ADVAN- 

 TAGE OVER THE SINGLE. 



AN INTERESTING SERIES OP COMPARATIVE EX- 

 PERIMENTS. 



By B. & E. C. Porter. 



Editor Gleanings:— In response to your re- 

 quest in your issue of July 15, for our views as 

 to whether increasing the number of escapes 

 «sed to the board, or increasing the number of 

 exits of the escaoe shortens the time occupied 

 by the bees in leaving the super, permit us to 

 say, as we have said before, that, previous to 

 bringing out the Porter escape, we made ex- 

 tensive and very careful comparative tests to 

 determine this; and while it seemed reasonable 

 to suppose that thus enlarging the means of 

 egress should correspondingly facilitate the de- 

 parture of the bees, yet our experiments show 

 that neither the one nor the other has the 

 slightest effect in this regard; and, further, 

 that neither the use of more thau one escape to 

 the board nor the use of more than one exit to 

 the escape is of any^advantage in any way, 

 providing the one exit used is of such construc- 

 tion that it does not become clogged with dead 

 bee 



While our use of escapes in the regular work 

 of the apiary every year since has been of such 

 a character as to expose the error of this con- 

 clusion, if it existed, yet our experiences there- 

 in have confirmed rather than disapproved it; 

 nor has any thing been brought out by any one 

 else to lead us to think that we were in the 

 wrong. 



The two exoeriments of Mr. Reddish, detailed 

 in Gleanings of July 15, throw no light on the 

 question, as they were not comparative; and, 

 further, that it is not at all unusual for all the 

 bees, under favorable conditions, to pass from 

 the super through a single-exit escape in from 

 1)4 to 2 hours. .jTests of different forms or sizes 

 of escapes, to be of any value as showing their 

 relative merits, must be comparative, and made 

 with the same colony at the same time of day, 

 and under approximately the same condition s 

 as to weather, honey-flow, siz'3 of super, and con- 

 tents th ereo 



Iq the summer of 18M this matter was brought 

 up in the Review by Mr. R. C. Aiken, of Colo- 

 rado, who was of the opinion that the single- 



exit Porter escape was not of sufficient capacity, 

 and we, at this time, made further experiments 

 in the same line as before, and with the same 

 result, using our single-exit escape to the board 

 in comparison with as many as a dozea single- 

 exitescapas to the board, and also with escapes 

 having as many as fifteen exits. To enable Mr. 

 Aiken to test the matter for himself, we sent 

 him a fifteen-exit escape with several of less 

 capacity. After having tested it, in a limited 

 way, in comparison with our single-exit escape, 

 he writes us that he could not see that the large 

 one expedited the matter in the least. After 

 further trial, in a conversation with the writer 

 at the Chicago convention, he confirmed this 

 opinion. We also, the same summer, mailed 

 several fifteen-exit escapes to others, including 

 one to Hon. R. L. Taylor, but do not know that 

 any of these were ever used. When mailing 

 escapes to customers that season, we sent a 

 number of them, in addition to the escapes, an 

 escape having exits at both ends, but other- 

 wise practically the same as the regular form, 

 and asked to have it tested comparatively. Bnt 

 one of these, however, Mr. H. J. Lingenfelter, 

 of Glen, N. Y., favored us with a report. He 

 wrote as follows: '"The double-exit escape 

 works very well, but I prefer the single, as it 

 clears the sections from bees sooner than the 

 double. lean account for it in but oneway; 

 and that is, when the bees start from the super 

 they set up a call from each end of the escape, 

 which seems to confuse them, and they run back 

 and forth instead of passing out as they do from 

 the single exit." 



In the past ten days, to verify the results of 

 our former experiments and experiences, and to 

 eliminate possibility of error in this matter still 

 further, we have made and thoroughly tested, 

 in comparison with the regular Porter escape 

 used singly, the sixty-exit escape, which we 

 have forwarded to you for further trial, should 

 you care to make it. The tests in this instance 

 were made as follows: 



Two strong colonies in ten-frame L. hives, 

 having 63-2 inch extracting-supers above, about 

 half filled with honey, were selected, and at 8 

 A. M. the multiple-exit escape was placed under 

 the super of one and a single-exit escape under 

 the suDir of the other. At intervals of an hour 

 the supers were examined and the results noted. 

 When the bee? had all passed out, the escapes 

 were removed, and the bees allowed to resume 

 their normal condition in'the supars. 



At 8 o'clock the next morning the escapes 

 were again placed under these supers, but in 

 reverse order, and the results noted as before. 

 The experiment was further continued in the 

 same way with two other hives of the same 

 size, but having two 6X-iQch supers on each, 

 the escapes in each instance being placed below 

 both of the supers; but in no one of the four 

 tests could we detect that the bees passed out 



