At 09:48 AM 7/15/96 -0500, you wrote: As of right now, unless I learn of a way to > make them more effective, I will go back to Bee Escape screens. > It may have caused another trip to the apiary but in the past > with them I didn't have to spend the day killing my charges. > Hi Mark: I'm certainly not as experienced or as knowledgable as many others on the list; and I'm sure you'll get many other suggestions but here's my method..for what its worth. After experiencing mostly frustration with bee escapes and being unwilling to mess with fume boards, I happened on an article in Bee culture magazine last year that described shaking and brushing as a means of removing bees from supers. I bring an empty super with me when I am going to pull off honey supers. Frist I remove all the supers on a given hive. Then I pull each super frame, give it a sharp shake (do not knock) over the hive to dislodge most of the bees, then quickly brush off the stragglers. The frame then goes into the empty super. I place a piece of plywood on a hand truck, put the super on the plywood and cover with a spare outer cover. The process is repeated with each frame to be extracted. When transporting I strap the plywood, supers and cover together with my Kevlock straps, maintaining a bee tight package. Now for the qualifications. * This process is done most efficiently with two people * I was only working three hives w/3 supers/ea...this method may be too labor intensive for more than, say, 10 hives. Hope this is of some help. Tim Peters, Kirby VT [log in to unmask] KirBee Apiary, Bear Bait Honey I rather be flying!