Wax moth love varroa floors

[oliver90owner]

Ely,

I'm thinking of changing to solid floors

Don't even consider it!

Think insulation here. Air is a good insulator - just like, but much better than water. Most of your clothes are based on insulating materials, most with trapped air cells.

Your hot water tank is never insulated on the bottom; doesn't need to be, because water - a fluid - is a poor conductor of heat and the warmer water always stays at the top (think convection).

A small amount of extra heat lost by radiation and slow air changes (carbon dioxide is heavier than air) and is far outweighed by the main advantage - a dry hive.

To maintain a dry hive with a solid floor requires extra ventilation - most leave gaping holes or slots in or around the crownboard - far more draught than through the OMF (as it is relentless, 24/7). Actually I have raised the brood box from the floor to give the extra ventilation for a solid floor, and that does work (needs careful organising though).

It is recorded that colonies on OMF do use a little more stores - not too sure about that but I will accept it - my hives have sufficient stores for most eventualities anyway.

To counteract any chance of condensation in the upper part of the hive, I insulate over the crownboard and simply leave the bees to it, from clustering until spring-brooding needs to get under way (to be ready for the OSR).

Since whenever they were introduced, more and more are using them in preference to solid floors - although there will always be some who would not change.

Think temperature - the temperature at the floor level will be the same as with a solid floor, any warm air would leak out the entrance and be replaced with cold air from outside, so it is only that extra draught which makes any difference. It would not be recommended to leave an OMF with absolutlely no draught protection if it were in a very exposed position with a howling gale all the time (we all pick better spots than that for over-wintering!). I sometimes place a baffle under my hives to avoid the coldest conditions (still open but any draught would be attenuated), but I am not really sure it is needed.

Unless you have a lot of turbulence under your hive the mesh will reduce any draughts considerably from one side to the other of the mesh and the likely effect would be to draw air out through the mesh - to be replaced by cold air through the entrance mostly.

They are good and I have used them for about ten years with dry hives and no problems for the bees. If you really wanted to, you could put an empty super above (or below) the OMF. I have put them over the OMF. It works but the bees are likely to build wild comb in the super in the spring! They are obviously quite happy to enlarge the broodnest into that area early in spring.

So the simple answer is - heat rises and there is not much draught where they are clustered tightly within the combs.

Regards, RAB

 

[Ely]

Ely,

I'm thinking of changing to solid floors

Don't even consider it!

Think insulation here. Air is a good insulator - just like, but much better than water. Most of your clothes are based on insulating materials, most with trapped air cells.

Your hot water tank is never insulated on the bottom; doesn't need to be, because water - a fluid - is a poor conductor of heat and the warmer water always stays at the top (think convection).

A small amount of extra heat lost by radiation and slow air changes (carbon dioxide is heavier than air) and is far outweighed by the main advantage - a dry hive.

To maintain a dry hive with a solid floor requires extra ventilation - most leave gaping holes or slots in or around the crownboard - far more draught than through the OMF (as it is relentless, 24/7). Actually I have raised the brood box from the floor to give the extra ventilation for a solid floor, and that does work (needs careful organising though).

It is recorded that colonies on OMF do use a little more stores - not too sure about that but I will accept it - my hives have sufficient stores for most eventualities anyway.

To counteract any chance of condensation in the upper part of the hive, I insulate over the crownboard and simply leave the bees to it, from clustering until spring-brooding needs to get under way (to be ready for the OSR).

Since whenever they were introduced, more and more are using them in preference to solid floors - although there will always be some who would not change.

Think temperature - the temperature at the floor level will be the same as with a solid floor, any warm air would leak out the entrance and be replaced with cold air from outside, so it is only that extra draught which makes any difference. It would not be recommended to leave an OMF with absolutlely no draught protection if it were in a very exposed position with a howling gale all the time (we all pick better spots than that for over-wintering!). I sometimes place a baffle under my hives to avoid the coldest conditions (still open but any draught would be attenuated), but I am not really sure it is needed.

Unless you have a lot of turbulence under your hive the mesh will reduce any draughts considerably from one side to the other of the mesh and the likely effect would be to draw air out through the mesh - to be replaced by cold air through the entrance mostly.

They are good and I have used them for about ten years with dry hives and no problems for the bees. If you really wanted to, you could put an empty super above (or below) the OMF. I have put them over the OMF. It works but the bees are likely to build wild comb in the super in the spring! They are obviously quite happy to enlarge the broodnest into that area early in spring.

So the simple answer is - heat rises and there is not much draught where they are clustered tightly within the combs.

Regards, RAB

Thanks. Very insightful. Makes much more sense now cheers

 

[The Apprentices]

Here's something I learnt today and I thought I would share it with everyone.
I pulled the tray out on the varroa floor today to see if there was any varroa and to my surprise there was around 40 yes 40 wax moth larvae. I soon realised they were feeding on the wax that had fallen through the mesh. My concern is whatever my hive is sat on the larvae will have a dinner table under the hive. I think I will put them back on solid floors.
Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone have a solution to this problem

Make yourself a mesh floor using No.8 mesh with a sealed but sliding tray like the one I have just made, in the drawer pour a small coating of white oil or similar that will saturate anything that fall in or manages to enter.

You get the best of both a fine mesh and a solid floor combination.

If you think that Varroa cannot crawl back inside after falling out think again.

You need to trap them like wasps with a liquid or oil so they are toast, its a tried and tested method with beetles traps in the USA so why not Varroa or moths.

A freind and long time beekeeper put me onto this as he has been using a similar trick for quite some time and it does work.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

If you really wanted to, you could put an empty super above (or below) the OMF. I have put them over the OMF. It works but the bees are likely to build wild comb in the super in the spring! They are obviously quite happy to enlarge the broodnest into that area early in spring.

This is a good plan for those with single walled hives in wind exposed situations over winter - slip a super under the floor (then you don't get the wild comb or the unwanted building, although it does make a landing board superfluous) to cut down on wild draughts.

 

[user 6228]

Sorry for the repeated message. I find it hard to see why they would be ok. They must defy physics. I'm pretty sure my central heating would be useless if my house was on stilts with no floor!

The PHYSICS
The OMF causes heat loss through:

1. metal conduction from the centre to the walls
2. metal conduction from the colder air below
3. air movement through the mesh
4. radiation losses

.
The first can be reduced by having a plastic mesh and improving the insulation of the walls
The second two can be reduced by reducing the air velocity under the mesh to as close to zero as possible
This can be done anumber of ways :

1. by total enclosing the space under floor
2. increasing the height of enclosed air column under the floor
3. enclosing the bottom with a system of air baffles that lets objects fall through, reduces horizontal air velocity to zero and reduces vertical air velocities.

of these:

1. is against hygiene unless combined with other hygienic features, see other posts.
2. is the super underneath. This helps but this not really tall enough to work well as its height is smaller than the aperture. Consider boxing in the sides of the top part of the stand
3. can be as simple just inserting a larger mesh screen (eg 6-12mm )in the varroa slot or under the super under the floor.

 

[The Apprentices]

This is a good plan for those with single walled hives in wind exposed situations over winter - slip a super under the floor (then you don't get the wild comb or the unwanted building, although it does make a landing board superfluous) to cut down on wild draughts.

Before I ask several questions regarding draughts and weather related ideas I do not condone the Warre system due to its uncontrollable atributes as a beginner keeper, but there some ideas that himself and Adam were doing which seems to clash for the wealth of hees.

Does the eek technique work or act like a cold sync like the sumps used in indian growing houses of old where the cold air sinks below the ground level taking away the colder Co2 ellements from transporation from the bees.

Warre found that if he placed the hives closer to the ground it prevent draughts and in the warmer weather lifted the floors slightly.

One observation on the clustering issue when the bees gather together like many other animals and insects do like penguins in order of moving inwards for shared bodily warmth, and to explain this traight with an old saying that my Gradfather used to use from time to time was that "Heat is Half Meat" meaning that if you can keep warmer without working at it in a winter situation you need far less food.

Now bees like other wild creatures have a hairy body which naturally thickens like dogs say, I do not know if our bees go through a moulting stage, if not then they reley sloely on the bunching technique in order of keeping to stay warmer.

If the hive they are in has a larger gap between the perifery of the bees and the hive after the pecking order and stores issue has been established, the distance between the hive wall there could well be a larger volume surrounding them which would expose the bees on the perifery to a greater cold meaning they would have to move around more in order of creating muscle energy in order of keeping warm thus eating more food.

As we know the uk climate is raw damp and cold creating a greater challenge to our bees, the Slovenian Carnica and their winters is a dry cold and they are less hairy and clusters much tighter in order of overwintering which they do very well thus eating less food than the Italian crosses used throughout the Uk.

So my question is this,, since the loss of our traditionally climatised bees in the IOW outbreak, why didn't brother Adam choose bees with similar attributes to the black bee than the three genus types ours are derrived from today.

Anyone here using Carnica crosses and or Warre type hives and what are your results in the winter/summer stakes.

 

[poshpikey]

When you use a tray to monitor varoa mite levels are you just monitoring dead mites? Won't the live ones climb back up the inside of the hive?

 

[Black Comb]

No. They fall down and die. That is why open mesh floors were brought into use. The ventilation benefits (?) are an extra.

 

[user 6228]

there are other method than mesh to achieving the same ends. However, these methods can fall down by

• obstructing the bees carrying out mortuary/cleaning
• expense of construction
• poor insulation
• poor construction
• lack of bee proofness
• difficulty of construction

These can be overcome but it takes careful thought and experimentation