Is a landing/launching pad necessary on a beehive? I asked myself that question while painting bee boxes today.
In high winds or Full Honey/ Pollen Load it makes life easier for the bees when they get a bit wobbly
3 Likes
No, but fully laden bees will do better with one. Better to land with a thump on a landing board than to plunge into wet grass.
I don’t actually use them, my boxes are set back on the stand which acts as a landing board…same effect
I’m thinking about landing pads again. The other day some new beekeepers were very surprised to learn that I don’t include landing pads on my hives.
It just occurred to me that my flush entrance IS a landing pad. A “landing pad”, as we know it suggests that the bees will land on a flat horizontal surface. They spend most of their lives on anything BUT a flat horizontal surface.
It has occurred to me that the flat vertical surfaces surrounding my entrances ARE large landing pads.
Howdy Jeff, I do put landing pads on mine, pretty sure the bees couldn’t care less but it does make me feel better and as an added bonus it gives me somewhere to dump the burr comb when inspecting, I then come back and retrieve the cleaned up wax later.
1 Like
Hi Rod, I just put that loose comb above the vinyl mats. Do you see those bees on the face of your hive? That’s the area I am now (since this morning) calling my landing pad. Plus the bit below the entrance.
In an area that gets snow: you’ll see snow sitting on the landing pad, as in @VinoFarm’s video.
Ah yes, I do recall you mentioning that in a previous post. There is one disadvantage to the flat landing pad and that is heavy dew overnight and rain, the water sits on the platform and traps bees, so I now angle the pad downwards and this has resolved the issue.
Yeah, I can see that being an issue, how lucky are we in Australia… just the rain and sometimes lack of it to contend with… 
1 Like
Yes exactly, we are very dry here at the moment.