6 Best Bee Escape Boards for Honey Harvest

Harvest day doesn’t have to be a battle between you and thousands of protective bees. Many new beekeepers dread the process of clearing honey supers, resorting to aggressive smoking or frantic brushing that stresses the colony and frays nerves. A good bee escape board transforms this ordeal into a quiet, methodical task that works with bee behavior, not against it.

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Why Telescoping Escapes Simplify Your Harvest

The core job of a bee escape board is simple: get bees out of your honey supers and keep them out. It’s essentially a one-way door you place between the honey you want to harvest and the brood boxes below. Worker bees naturally travel down into the main hive but find they can’t get back up into the supers, leaving them nearly empty for you 24 to 48 hours later.

These boards are designed to replace your standard inner cover, fitting snugly under the telescoping outer cover. This perfect fit is crucial. It prevents robbing from opportunistic neighboring hives and stops your bees from finding alternative ways back into the honey, ensuring the one-way system works as intended.

Using an escape board is the calmest method for clearing bees. There’s no need for chemical fume boards, which can be unpleasant and risk contaminating your honey. You also avoid the chaos of brushing or blowing bees off every single frame, a process that agitates the colony and dramatically increases your chances of getting stung. It’s a "set it and forget it" approach that respects the bees’ natural tendencies.

Mann Lake 10-Frame Telescoping Inner Cover Escape

Mann Lake is one of the biggest names in beekeeping supplies, and their escape board is a reliable, no-fuss standard. It’s typically a wooden board, similar in construction to a standard inner cover, but fitted with a plastic maze-style escape in the center. This design is intuitive and effective for most situations.

You use it by swapping it with your inner cover, placing it directly underneath the honey supers you plan to pull. The bees work their way through the plastic insert’s simple labyrinth to get to the brood nest below. The path back is confusing, so they stay down, clearing the boxes above for an easy, bee-free harvest.

This is an excellent starting point for any beginner. It’s built to standard Langstroth dimensions, so you don’t have to worry about fit. Its primary strength is its simplicity and predictability; it does exactly what it’s supposed to do without any complex parts that could fail.

Dadant & Sons Telescoping Board for Langstroth

Dadant brings over 150 years of beekeeping experience to their equipment, and it shows in the construction of their escape boards. While functionally similar to other brands, the focus here is on build quality. The wood is often higher grade, and the joints are precisely milled for a tight, durable fit.

A poorly constructed board can warp, creating gaps that let bees bypass the escape or invite robbers. Dadant’s commitment to quality materials helps prevent these issues, ensuring the board remains flat and effective season after season. A solid, well-fitting board is a small investment that pays off in reduced frustration.

For the beekeeper who values longevity and "buy it once" quality, the Dadant board is a top contender. It’s a piece of equipment built for work, not just for a single season. The escape mechanism itself is usually a standard, reliable plastic or metal design, but it’s housed in a superior wooden frame.

Ceracell 8-Way Escape for Rapid Hive Clearing

If speed is your priority, the Ceracell escape is in a class of its own. Instead of a simple two-way maze, this bright yellow, circular plastic escape features eight separate exits. This design dramatically increases the rate at which bees can leave the honey supers, often clearing a box in a matter of hours rather than a full day.

The multi-exit system is less prone to traffic jams, a common issue with simpler designs. A lost drone or a bit of propolis can clog a standard escape, but it’s highly unlikely to block all eight of the Ceracell’s exits. This makes it incredibly reliable for clearing supers quickly, which is a huge advantage if you’re trying to beat bad weather or have a tight schedule.

This escape is often sold as an insert you can fit into your own board or as a complete unit. While some traditionalists may hesitate at the plastic construction, its efficiency is undeniable. For a hobbyist with several hives to harvest, the time saved makes the Ceracell a powerful tool.

Betterbee’s Durable Plastic Cone Escape Board

Betterbee offers an excellent alternative to traditional wood boards with their cone escape board. This board is often made entirely of durable, non-porous plastic and features multiple small cone-shaped escapes instead of a central maze. The principle is the same: bees can easily crawl out the wide end of the cone but find it nearly impossible to navigate back through the tiny opening at the tip.

The biggest advantage here is durability and hygiene. A plastic board will never warp, rot, or splinter like wood can. It’s also incredibly easy to clean; you can scrape off propolis and wax without worrying about damaging the material, and it can be sanitized thoroughly to prevent the spread of disease.

Cone escapes are also less likely to get clogged by drones, which are too large to get stuck in the narrow tips. This simple, robust design is perfect for beginners who want a low-maintenance, highly effective tool. It removes the risk of a warped board and offers a simple, foolproof clearing mechanism.

Lappe’s Bee Supply Board with Metal Escapes

For a taste of tradition, a board fitted with classic metal Porter bee escapes is a fantastic choice. Lappe’s Bee Supply and other classic apiary shops often carry these. The Porter escape is a small metal device with two sets of delicate, spring-loaded "gates" that let bees pass through in only one direction.

This design has been used for over a century and is exceptionally effective when it’s working properly. The bees push past the weak springs to exit, and the metal gates fall back into place, blocking their return. It’s a clever, purely mechanical solution that requires no complex maze.

The main tradeoff is maintenance. The delicate springs can sometimes be clogged with propolis or jammed by a drone, rendering the escape useless. You need to check them before each use to ensure they move freely. For the beekeeper who appreciates time-tested designs and doesn’t mind a quick inspection, the Porter escape is an elegant and proven tool.

Hoover Hives Wooden Board with Dual Escapes

Hoover Hives is known for producing quality woodenware, and their escape board reflects that. A key feature to look for, which they and others sometimes offer, is a board with dual escape mechanisms. This provides redundancy, which is a huge benefit for a beginner counting on a successful harvest.

Imagine setting up your escape board, only to find a day later that a single drone has clogged the only exit and your supers are still full of bees. A dual-escape board solves this. If one exit gets blocked, the bees simply move to the other, ensuring the box still clears out as planned.

This feature provides peace of mind. It’s a small design choice that significantly increases the reliability of the entire process. For a new beekeeper, reducing the chances of failure is key to building confidence, and a dual-escape board is a smart way to do just that.

Choosing Your Board: Wood vs. Plastic Options

The decision between a wood and a plastic escape board comes down to your priorities: tradition and breathability versus durability and ease of cleaning. There is no single right answer, only the best choice for your specific apiary management style.

Wooden boards are the traditional choice. They are familiar, and the wood’s natural breathability can help manage moisture within the hive. However, they require more care. They can warp if not stored flat, and the porous wood grain can be harder to fully sanitize between uses.

Plastic boards are the pragmatic, low-maintenance option.

• They will not warp or rot.
• They are exceptionally easy to scrape clean and sanitize.
• They are often lighter and more durable if dropped. The only real downside is that they don’t breathe, which can trap condensation if left on the hive for an extended period in certain climates. For most beginners focused on simplicity and reliability, a plastic board or a wooden board with a modern plastic escape insert offers the best of both worlds.

Ultimately, any of these escape boards will make your honey harvest calmer and more successful. By letting the bees clear out on their own schedule, you turn a potentially stressful job into a simple, two-step process of placing the board and returning later to collect your reward. Choose the one that best fits your budget and maintenance preferences, and you’ll quickly find it’s one of the most valuable tools in your apiary.