Another DIY piece of wooden ware.

[Rex Piscator]

I am really enjoying building my own bee keeping equipment with just a few power tools. After constructing a stand for the hive I moved to a buddy's place, I needed to start clearing some surplus supers and extracting. Being a hobby backyard bee keeper and not wanting to use a fume board or brush each frame by hand[there are about 5/4 8-frame boxes worth to clear], I decided to look into 'escape boards'. Both hives are in my yard and within a few yards of the back door, so visiting my apiary multiple times a day is no problem.

I found some good plans at Dave Cushman's site and I choose what I felt was the more simple project, the Roger Patterson square 'vortex' escape. I used 3/8" ply[well of course just under 3/8", more like 5/16"] for the pieces and board itself with 1"x3" as the depth for the escaping bees and 3/4" for the top spacing. This gives me a 2 1/2" void to accept the outflow. I'll be putting it on today while I'm out in the yard with some landscaping projects...hope it works well!

[Ardilla]

Nice. I made a triangle escape vortex style a while back from scrap lumber.
It works but doesn't look as nice as yours...

[Rex Piscator]

Thanks,

Well, it worked very well indeed! I put it under the top full super, replaced the cover, and headed out to lunch. After returning and doing a few things, I went out and removed the inner cover to see just a few bees left in the super! Amazing!! It made it very easy to transfer the full frames over to my portable bench[another DIY from photos on this site], where I had another super ready. I replaced the 6 frames I removed with some previously 'just started' frames with foundation and placed this box under the escape board and placed the next surplus box on top; ready for another go on the 'Vortex'...!! Hurry, hurry...4 exits, no waiting!