OMF Floors

[Poly Hive]

Wee challenge for you all.

When did OMF floors (aka ventilated) appear in the UK?

PH

 

[oliver90owner]

Early 90's? But I daresay they were actually tried by some Victorian beekeeper. Not much that is really new, just recycled ideas.

Regards, RAB

 

[wightbees]

I thought it was mid 80s in uk

 

[Mike a]

About the time skeps were first used in the UK... mediaeval?

 

[Busy Bee]

I think around 1992/93

Busy Bee

 

[Erichalfbee]

20 years ago?

 

[drstitson]

OMFs

sometime between mid nineteenth century and early 21st century.

 

[rich]

If I remember rightly some trial work was going on regarding mesh floors in 1987, so most likely a Mk1 ventilated floor would be sometime prior to that, it's a sort of "how longs that bit of string" .....

Rich

 

[MuswellMetro]

i first saw Varroa at a rothamsted open day in about 1992 or 3 and my first varroa floor about 1996 or 7 when a Bee Inspector gave a demonstration of how to make one and he recomended 1 omf to 3 solid floor for monitoring


we monitored varroa with sticky trays on closed floors until 1998 when we got one OMF floor (for 50 hives ) My GF was a mean scrouge beekeeper

no idea if that was typical, but that what i remember

 

[Finman]

.
I bet that it came to UK with commercial polyhive in year 1987.

Our beeresearcher studied in California university beekeeping and he made first boards in Finland in late 1967 something.

 

[johnandyrob]

Are they not just an extension of use of heather floors?

 

[MuswellMetro]

.
I bet that it came to UK with commercial polyhive in year 1987.

Our beeresearcher studied in California university beekeeping and he made first boards in Finland in late 1967 something.

in Varroa facts at end of the article 1992 in UK and no one i knew used OMF then, though i expect they were being trialled before then

http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/news/2010/12/22/bee-scientists/

 

[Teemore]

It depends......
Yes, you could argue that they are a development of heather floors or even of the mesh ventilation insert present in the floors of the Irish CDB (Congestion District Board) hives which have been on the go since at least the mid 19th Century and since Northern Ireland is a part of the UK, you could thus argue that OMFs have always been in the UK!!! As a specific element within integrated pest management they are a more recent development and I'd be inclined to agree with Finman's suggested date of 1987. Alternatively, don't the Yanks refer to them as Pettit Boards? When were they first developed and could someone have brought the idea to the UK?

 

[drstitson]

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/kenhomf.html

used in the states pre 1990 - trialled in UK early 90s apparently. then varroa arrived.

 

[Finman]

in Varroa facts at end of the article 1992 in UK and no one i knew used OMF then, though i expect they were being trialled before then

http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/news/2010/12/22/bee-scientists/

i bought my first polyhives 1987. They were Nacca and made in Denmark. I cast away mesh floors at same summer.

Varroa had arrived to my area 10 years earlier.
Most of hives were "long hive type". Old beekeepers lost their bees and they did not know what happened to bees. First medicide we got about 1988 and it was perizin.

First medicine were fat soluble and mites were counted to avoid handling and contamination.

.

 

[Poly Hive]

They first arrived (as I understand it) from Germany in the early 1980's, roughly 1980-84 when Struan apiaries began selling poly units and the floors all had a mesh panel. Made of plastic it was a bit of a nightmare for moving as grass would twine through it and lo you had bees streaming at you..lol

Bernard had them pre that time as the ones at Craibstone had obviously done a fair bit of work by the time I met them in 87.

PH