Floor depth...

[bjosephd]

I'm building a floor.

What do you DIYers believe is the bestest depth to make it?

I'm using Langstroth, so top space boxes.

Dave Cushman says 28mm or 31mm! And I asume that is using National Box bottom bee space!

Seems excessive.

If that's the maximum, I'd say 9mm is the minimum?

Thoughts please before I go timber shopping.

Thanks!

BJD

 

[Finman]

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2 cm is good and minimum. 9 mm is too small. Dead moldy bees have contact to frames in Winter.

If the gap is too high, bees do into it drone cells. That works as mite incubator.

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[Swarm]

My underfloor entrances are fitted with 18mm battens, my hives are TBS.

 

[andydormer]

I've just built two of the screened bottom boards from

http://www.michiganbees.org/beekeeping/in-the-beekeepers-workshop/

http://www.michiganbees.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Screened-Bottom-Board_20110324.pdf

their height is 22mm above the screen.

I will be testing them out this season.

 

[Barbarian]

With BBS Nationals I found that the bees built hard dirty comb (ladders ?) down from the bottom bars of the frames. These ladders were a nuisance when combining and other manipulations. I reduced the internal depth to about 10mm and found things better.

With an OMF floor, the bees did not draw foundation to the bottom bar. This can be countered by getting the foundation drawn in an upper BB.

 

[Little John]

Something I haven't given much thought to in the past - an inch, an inch-and-a-quarter - something like that. Certainly more than a couple of bee-spaces. Never had a problem in that area.
Never seen them draw comb downwards from the lower bottom bar unless there's a good three or four inches below it (like when putting a DN frame in a 14x12 box) - then they most certainly will, if they need to. Guess it depends on the type of bee and how much room they have, etc.
LJ

 

[Finman]

Never seen them draw comb downwards from the lower bottom bar unless there's a good three or four inches below it
LJ

In mesh floors?

I have seen in 30 mm gaps in solid floors. But what ever.

It is a nuisance when you swap double brood boxes.
.
But everyone has eyes in his head.

 

[Eyeman]

All mine are 20mm above the OMF simply because the planks of wood I cut up to make the floors are 20mm deep.