Deep OMF

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
2,984
Reaction score
7
Location
Exmoor
Hive Type
None
Number of Hives
None of my own
Just been looking at an OMF on eBay, which was claiming:

Please Note this floor allows for an extra 35mm “Bee Space” in addition to the normal British National Hive, bottom bee space below the brood chamber. We have been using this “high Floor” in Sweden for many years and it is also used in Germany and not only in biodynamic or ecological beekeeping. It’s helpful for working with the large brood box. If the colony is strong the bee cluster is able to hang down above the floor. This can in turn help to prevent swarming. In Germany the high floor also has a back door through which the bee keeper can take a look at the colony from below. With my varroa floor you can do this by kneeling down and looking up inside from the front. In early summer this can be helpful for judging the right time to put on the honey supers “ if the cluster is hanging down, it means that the weather is fine and lots of flowers can be expected.
Another point concerns the litter falling down from the cluster “ a high floor gives a greater distance between dropped litter and cluster and makes it easier to monitor and observe how well the bees clean this floor. If the floor is mostly dirty, your bees are bad cleaners “ this could be a reason for selection


Good idea or marketing guff?
 
Something simliar is used in the US amongst other places but it has slats across it and the idea is to protect the comb from draughts. It is a sort of eke.

I can see the concept described although there would be a risk of the bees building comb under the frames - but I suppose that doesn't matter and could be taken as a hint the bees need more space.
 
And wild comb is no problem?

I would be searching out these reports before accepting someone's word for it on epay.

Always marketing hype, justifying their product and making out their wheel (the one they have just invented) is better than the one invented last week, etc, etc.

Using terms such as: 'biodynamic or ecological beekeeping' is simply trying to blind the uneducated punter into thinking 'it must be good, with all those scientific sounding words'

If the colony is that strong, maybe it just needs a bigger box.

My take on it. Check it out before spending hard-earned cash. Home-made OMFs are easy and cheap to make. We had some guy on here take a 'battering' (well not really, but said he will never post again), probably less than a couple of months ago. Very nicely finished hardwood OMFs for forty quid, but probably no better than the six quid version knocked up at home when it comes to practicality.

Regards, RAB
 
Omf

the floor itself looks ok and personally can't see the problem with a bit of extra space below frames (DBs often have overly deep brood chambers).

HOWEVER the homeopathy bit is a load of **** IMHO.

He's likely to put off many purchasers of what is a reasonably priced floor for those without tools or the time to build their own.
 
I like a gap between bottom of frames and start of the floor. I don't find bees build brace comb under the nest - it seems to limit at the bottom of the frames.

Thats not new though, people have been doing it for nearly as long as beekeeping has been around!

Adam
 
I wondered about the space under frames in OMF National floors as I made a Dartington type floor from plans provided on this site which doesnt have any. The bees will only have the bottom bee space of the BB.
Would it be better to have an eke to raise the BB box off the floor?
 
No problem until returning a frame to position with a bunch of bees at the bottom. Sccrrunch! If the queen hapeens to be there......

So the answer is yes.

regards, RAB
 
the floor itself looks ok and personally can't see the problem with a bit of extra space below frames (DBs often have overly deep brood chambers).

HOWEVER the homeopathy bit is a load of **** IMHO.

He's likely to put off many purchasers of what is a reasonably priced floor for those without tools or the time to build their own.

:hurray::hurray:
The Homeopathy bit isn't even in english.... is it??

... The more dilutions of the mother tincture, the more the potency.... (but don't dilute it - apparently only Witch doctors can dilute properly ).....

...The disease entity or parasite or whatever is given at a different level of vibration, so it is not amenable to chemical analysis........

I'm all for "natural" but this gibberish does it a dis-service
 

Latest posts

Back
Top