Now, guys, quit dead-bee-trap-bashing. At U of I here we use a design by the g adget man Norman Gary. I believe he published the plans on J. Econ. Entomol. If chuck needs more details, sent me a private mail. A dead bee trap is used to discourage the 'undertakers' -- bees that speciali zed in removing corpses -- from removing them and drop into the trap. this is usually used to know the mortality of, say, newly introduced painted or marked bees, A thing probably only bee-men would do. As a matter of fact, I was cursi ng all day today, because it took me 4 hours to collect 10 painted undertakers. It seems that some colonies removes corpses faster than others, who knows if t hey have more undertakers or just enjoys more undertaking. The trap uses simple aerodynamics -- a bee carrying a dead needs a runway t o take off, just like a plane, so by forcing bees to take off straight off, the y usually end up dropping the dead in a plastic bag fitted under the screen 'cliff'. -zhiyong