108 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



B, is to admit of a depression under 

 F for the reception of dead bees that 

 ma}' chance to get into the escape. A 

 dozen or twenty dead bees may get in- 

 to the escape and not interfere with 

 the bees out between the springs. To 

 prepare the escape for use, make a 

 plain board of \ inch material, the 

 size of the top of the hives on which it 

 is to be used. Cleat the board at sides 

 and ends so as to provide tbe necessary 

 bee-space above or below the board. 

 Bore two holes 2| inch apart from cen- 

 ter to center, and near the center of 

 the board, with a 1^ inch bit, and cut 

 the, intervening wood; drop the escape 

 into this opening and it is ready for use. 

 To adjust the escape-board on the 

 hive, remove the hive-cover A few 

 puffs of smoke are necessary to pre- 

 vent the bees from becoming angry. 

 Raise the super, place the board on 

 the hive, and set the super on the 

 board, and return the hive-cover. All 

 is none in less time than is required to 

 write this sentence, yet this is all the 

 time required by the bee-keeper tore- 

 move the bees from the super, as the 

 bees pass out at their leisure, and the 

 super is taken to the honey-house at 

 any convenient time after the bees 

 have deserted it. 



During the season of 1890 I remov- 

 ed all my comb honey, about 2500 lbs., 

 from the hives by the use of escapes, 

 and experienced less inconvenience 

 ami annoyance by robbers or bees in 

 my honey-house than I have frequent- 

 ly experienced in removing a couple 

 of hundred pounds by the old method 

 of smoking, shaking, and brushing of 

 tin 1 bees from the supers. 



I used four different patterns of es- 

 capes — the cone, trap-door, Porter 



spring, and Mr. Dibbern's latest pat- 

 tern. Tripple-cone escapes made of 

 perforated tin work quite well at times. 

 Occasionally quite a number of bees 

 find their way back through the cones 

 into the super. 



The trap-door escape works nicely 

 for a little while, but they are soon 

 rendered useless on account of propolis. 



Mr. Dibbern's new escape gave very 

 poor results, as, in my first trial with 

 it, there was very little decrease in the 

 number of bees in a T super in 2 1 

 hours after adjusting the escape on the 

 hive. My second trial was bnt little 

 better, as only about half the bees were 

 out of the super in 24 hours. In sub- 

 sequent trials it worked some better, 

 but not any better, if as well, as the 

 cone escapes, as the bees are slower in 

 passing out through the Dibbern. I 

 very much dislike the Dibbern escape, 

 for two reasons: i, e., it is just as liable 

 to clog up with dead bees as the cone 

 escape is, and there is no way of clear- 

 ing it out or knowing that it is or is not 

 in working order without taking it apart. 



The only objection I see so far to 

 the Porter spring escape is, that it has 

 no automatic principle thai will extract 

 the bees from the supers in a given 

 time ; and the bees of some colonies, 

 under certain conditions of weather, 

 are very slow to move out; but once 

 they are out, they are certain to stay out. 



While the bees have shown a dispo- 

 sition to propolize the perforations in 



the perforated tin cone escapes, and 

 plaster over those made of wire 

 cloth, and glue the doors of the trap- 

 door escapes fast, they have put but 

 very little propolis into the spring es- 

 capes, but not enough to interfere with 

 the working of the springs in the least. 



