How to use a bee escape board

The day before you want to harvest, break out your escape board. This is the bottom of a triangle escape board. Once the bees go through it, the maze of mesh triangles prevents them from going back up

This is the top of the triangle escape board. The bees will go down the circular entrance.

Before you install the escape board in the hive, suit up in your protective gear and get your smoker going.

Make sure you have a hive tool handy.

Smoke the bees from the bottom and the top of the hive, as you would for a normal inspection.

Remove the cover of your hive. Figure out where your escape board will go. It should be above the brood boxes, and below the honey supers.

If you have a queen excluder above the brood boxes, remove it now.

Place the bee escape board, correct side up, on top of the brood boxes. Make sure that it is flush, and there are no gaps.

Place honey supers on top of the escape board. Overnight, the bees in the honey supers will go down into the brood box to be with the cluster. The next day, you can easily snatch the honey!