??  I am familiar with actual bee
> escapes and hardware cloth screened cones but am curious if anyone has
> better ideas for one-way bee escapes.

The cones works best using the principal the bees find their way out and the
bees trying to get in can not (for the most part) figure out how to enter 
the
cone. The farther from the window the end of the cone the better.

Many simply open a door around dusk and the bees fly out if the bees came
from hives close by.

The problem is different in a commercial operation when the bees trying to
get out *do not have a home to go to.* There are many solutions to the
problem. Some easy on bees and some which kill bees.
Letting those bees hang around is not good in a large operation.

One method is to let the bees enter a screen room. Then vacuum with a bee
vac and take to a bee yard and dump the bees out.

The electric bee killer is the most common method.

I vacuum with a bee vac first and release at a bee yard and also use an
electric bee killer in the extracting room.

At times we have boxes outside which we put brood in which has came in with
supers and bees from the honey house join those but even those are not
permanent. I remove all hives from the bee farm when extracting as whenever
the flow stops they make a nuisance of their selves trying to get into the
honey house.

I have to keep the number of bees down in the extracting area as some help
has never seen the inside of a hive and will not work when bees are hitting
light bulbs (burning wings) and then stinging the first person they
find.Always some bees in the honey house but when the help wears the plastic
gloves (wash dishes) most rarely get stung.  The plastic dish washing gloves
keep propolis off the ladies fingers and nails and makes the work go faster
as they are not slowed down by constantly looking for bees which might be
crushed by a finger resulting in a finger sting.

I personally do not do extracting but want my help to be relaxed while
working. If they have a complaint I listen and try to make the problem go
away.

bob

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