THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



241 



The energy that is put in a hived swarm is 

 left with the old colony ; with the artificial 

 method, the workers are left with the old 

 queen, and will work there, making new 

 combs or filling old ones that may have been 

 given them, as the case may be, while the 

 old colony, by the natural method, has lost 

 its old workers, except what workers were 

 in the field at the time the swarm came ofif. 

 So it is which and t'other ; bees that are of 

 the proper age to gather honey will gather 

 and store honey if it is to be had. 

 Platteville, Wis. Sept. 25, 1894 Q 



The Stampede Bee Escape. 



O. W. DAYTON. 



TJRIEND H. :— I 

 ir^ send you by 

 this mail a model 

 of my bee escape. 

 ( I have had a cut 

 made. — Ed.) No. 

 1 is a section of 

 the escape board 

 proper. No. 2 is 

 a gate of wire 

 cloth hinged at its 

 upper edge and 

 under which the 

 bees pass in their 

 efforts to reach the opening (4), towards 

 which they are drawn by the light coming in. 

 By the time they reach the screen through 

 which the light comes they discover a more 

 satisfactory route (No. :») to the brood nest. 

 No. 5 is the raised rim around the escape 

 board. No. 6 is the escape proper, made of 

 tin, a portion of which is cut away to show 

 openings 8 and 4. 



The escape rests on the top side of the es- 

 cape board instead of being let down into it. 

 This renders the screened window discern - 

 able from all points of the board, however 

 distant. In my experiments I have found that 

 they go through the escape rather than an 

 open outside exit. In the case of an outside 

 exit the first uneasy bees, after coming to 

 the outside, return inside again, and it is not 

 until they become very uneasy that they dare 

 take wing or course down to the entrance on 

 the outside surface of super and hive. The 

 first attempt to reach the window results in 

 such bee being trapped out of the super and 



obliged to proceed toward the brood cham- 

 ber. Thus in this escape it is trap first and 

 strange passage afterward instead of strange 

 passage first and trap last. After securing 

 to the board, adjust the points of wires so 

 to nearly admit a bee by bending a wire, 

 the rear part of the gate, against the roof, 

 the floor is uneven it makes no difference 

 returning bees climb on top of the gate, 

 have cleared 200 supers this season with 

 this escape. 



Having the exit partially open is the turn- 

 ing point in the success or failure of all es- 

 capes, and in the neglect of which many 

 cast escapes aside. If you wish the escape 

 to operate very fine, ravel out front lateral 

 wires to within two wires of spindle wire. 

 It requires about s much experience to ope- 

 rate escapes as it does in the spreading of 

 brood. An escape with a window to admit 

 outside light will operate the best from morn- 

 ing until about three or four o'clock in the 

 afternoon. But toward nightfall, bees will 

 retreat from the light, so that to do the most 

 rapid work the exit ought to be farthest 

 from the window. This point was suggested 

 and found true from the hiving of swarms 

 with a lantern or by moon light. If the 

 empty hive be placed on the moon side, as 

 the bees are placed before it, they do well if 

 they do not leave it entirely and retreat 

 away toward the darkness. Place the hive 

 on the dark side and they retreat from the 

 moon right into it. So the moon exerts an 

 influence on the hiving of bees and, possi- 

 bly, the operation of escapes, so to say. 



THE STAMPEDE BEE ESCAPE. 



With the gate at inside end of enclosed 

 dark passage robbers will not be caught. 

 This season, even in the height of the har- 

 vest, I found a band of robbers prying 

 around supers after the bees went out. Ire- 

 moved the super, but allowed escape and 

 board to remain on the hive. When a rob- 

 ber approached the gate, and, seeing the 



