Escape board not working on two hives

[ZambianVet]

Hi there

Got a serious problem here in Zambia. Any advice and help will be greatly appreciated. Our 8 way bee escape boards seem to have failed us.

We have about 2 months left of flowers so want to do one final harvest. Only plan is to take one super off the strongest hive and half the frames from the 2nd strongest hive. Inspected both hives on Sunday (20th March) midday and all supers are completely full and capped. Bees were extremely aggressive on Sunday (weather was overcast and colder than usual for March). After checking the supers we lifted them and placed empty supers underneath with escape board between them. Boards definitely inserted the correct way. One board has been used previously with amazing results and the other is brand new, both identical. We use queen excluders so definitely no queen up there.

Monday night (21st March) we went to collect the supers only to find that the supers on both if the hives are still completely full of bees and they were instantly defensive and aggressive as soon as the lid was cracked. Decided to give them another 24 hours but it is still the exact same situation tonight.

Why would they still be up there? We have no entrances higher up and the escape boards fit well enough that they can't squeeze through.

The weather has been cloudy and colder than usual the last 4 days but would that really stop them going out at all? We had a nice sunny afternoon today and I saw other bees out foraging the whole day.

We are considering just removing the supers and then brushing them off frame by frame but it is going to be a case of pushing through the stings if we do that. Those bees are very angry and a lot of bees are going to die if we do that. Daytime or night time I don't see that method turning out very well for us or the bees.

How much longer can we leave the escapes on for before we need to try something else?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Take out the empty supers?
I always clear straight into the brood box below.

 

[Wilco]

I had a hive like this last Summer, took well over a week to clear down with a rhombus escape. A super below helped as I think crowding was part of it.

How many spare escapes do you have? Putting one between each super can help.

I'd try to confirm where the queen is by spotting her... I've had some make it through QEs.

 

[pargyle]

If push comes to shove ... take the super off ... shake the bees off a frame at a time into the brood box and put the frames into an empty super and cover it over with a cloth or spare crownboard as you do it.

Like Dani I always put the clearer board between the super and the brood box... Only once they didn't clear using a rhombus clearer board ... I'd accidentally left a crown board stuck to the underside of the clearer board with propolis and in my excitement didn't notice it was there .... one of my dafter senior moments !

 

[ZambianVet]

I thought that a large hive would be less likely to move down if there was over crowding? Hence the empty super underneath to try provide more space for them.
We will take it off frame by frame if we have to but I’m really not keen to try that. These hives are so aggressive that we get hammered just checking the supers. Opening down to the brood boxes always causes a storm!

 

[ZambianVet]

I had a hive like this last Summer, took well over a week to clear down with a rhombus escape. A super below helped as I think crowding was part of it.

How many spare escapes do you have? Putting one between each super can help.

I'd try to confirm where the queen is by spotting her... I've had some make it through QEs.

So there is no harm in leaving the boards in for a few more days then?

we only have one other porter escape board which hasn’t worked as well as the 8 way in the past.

will try spot the queen but like I said these African bees are angry things. I only ever manage to do a full inspection on the weaker hives. There’s no brood in the super but I suppose she could be stuck up there anyway

 

[Finman]

If there are brood in the super, bees do not leave the box.

And all hives are agressive if you go to disturbe them before evening.

 

[Nannysbees]

We only have four hives, so we gently brushed off the bees from the frames. Last year we didn't have full boxes to extract just several frames from each hive. Why would your bees so very aggressive, is there another reason for that? Are they normally like that, or it it just because you are extracting?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Why would your bees so very aggressive

Probably because they're Adansonii, they're a lot more defensive than our bees.
In fact a lot of my beekeepers out in Tanzania harvest their honey at night as (unlike our bees) they feel they're not as aggressive then.

 

[ZambianVet]

Probably because they're Adansonii, they're a lot more defensive than our bees.
In fact a lot of my beekeepers out in Tanzania harvest their honey at night as (unlike our bees) they feel they're not as aggressive then.

Yes, they are more aggressive in general but these two hives are particularly bad. We have only had them for 3 years and are still learning so perhaps we just keep hassling them at the wrong time, wrong weather etc but it always seems to go badly with these two hives. The weaker hives don’t mind us opening the brood chamber at all but these strong ones just start attacking. We had to go for a 1km walk on Sunday before they left us alone.

We have decided to leave the escape boards on for another two nights and see what happens. Will check them tomorrow night and see if they are finally empty.

 

[Nige.Coll]

Is there a gap between the escape and the frames in the super below it?
Sometimes removing a couple of frames above the hole in the clearing board can also help.
I find if there isn't a space between the escape exit holes and the frames in the box below the bees down move down well.
Never handled the bees you keep so can only go on experiences with UK bees.

 

[Poly Hive]

I've always used escape boards with clearing down into an empty super. Never failed. Are you sure there is no brood upstairs as that would be my first suspect.

PH

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I've always used escape boards with clearing down into an empty super. Never failed. Are you sure there is no brood upstairs as that would be my first suspect.

PH

I made a rhombus clearer board with generous space incorporated.

 

[Poly Hive]

I cut them in half and put them in the corners if I use them, but normally I just use some flat 8mm deep wood with an 8mm gap and some mesh. Very simple very effective.

PH

 

[ZambianVet]

Hi all

so even by Thursday night there was still no change soI went ahead and pulled the supers off as they were. Did the first brush and transfer right there next to the hive so that most don’t get lost and then repeated it down the road under a light hung in a tree.
Escape boards were on in the correct orientation and there definitely wasn’t a queen or even brood in the supers so that can’t have been the problem.
Only other thing we noticed was that both hives had a lot of bees outside the entrance of each hive already sitting in the front of the hive. So maybe they are just really strong now and have idle workers that could afford to just sit in the super. They definitely need more space though so we have given them extra supers now.

The harvest itself was worth if. Got 18kg from 16 frames! Not as easy as I wanted it to go but we got there in the end.

Thanks again for all the advice and questions. Was good to try think through all the possibilities.