Thank Dawn, I was thinking along those lines. I’ll definitely make a couple, without treating & painting because even in my climate I can see advantages, especially during our mild winters, because that’s when the bees are more likely to leave a gap in the bottoms of the brood frames.
I don’t see a great deal of bearding, however any bearding can be easy pickings for cane toads because they have been known to piggyback each other in order to get closer to the bees, coupled with their elastic tongues. You don’t find several cane toads sitting under the entrance of a bee hive unless there’s something in it for them.
Hi Jeff!
I have slatted racks on almost all of my Langstroth hives and some of the Flow-Hives as well. I find they lend some utility to the hives by providing that extra space below the brood box.
They have demonstrated, in my apiary, that they will encourage the queen to lay lower on the brood frames than she did without the rack which provides that block of wood over the entrance.
In winter, the slatted rack helps deal with strong winds as well.
If people are doing oxalic acid vaporization with pans, then the slatted rack will help protect the brood frames from contact with that hot pan. BUT, some colonies will produce comb below the slats, so checking in on that is required.
There may be some benefit in reducing bearding outside the hives, but it’s been my experience that they still beard though it may be reduced. I’ll continue to use them
Wishing you all the best,
Fred
My boxes are getting very full of bees so I’ve had more bearding than usual anyway, but in SoCal we’ve also had more humidity than usual and it’s not as hot as it was a few weeks back when I had almost no bearding and basically the same amount of bees. I think the warm+humidity is worse than hot+dry, causing more bearding. That’s just a guess based on what I’ve read in the past though.
The bees control temperature and humidity with ventilation and evaporation (and muscle activity especially when it’s cold) so they have greater control when it is dry then when it is humid. Their activity within the hive generates some heat so they beard when it’s hot to make space for the ventilators/evaporators and to remove their heat generating to the outside. They will also shade the outside and fan the outside surface to reduce heat conduction through the hive wall.
