I noticed the screened bottom board has a built in slope to the back. My beekeeping experience says it should slope to the front. I realize the flow frames need to slope back but was not planning on doing this until I was ready to extract. Was this an error in the bottom board or do everyone’s screened bottom board slope backwards?
They are designed to slope backwards. The screened bottom should allow water to drain out.
I agree with @JeffH. If you live in a very wet climate, and use the upper slot for the slider, you may have some issues, but otherwise you will be fine.
The bottom boards have been built that way to make it easy to harvest at that back with no movement of the hive… The landing board slopes forward should drain at the entrance.
Some have put pegs under the back of the hive to make it level and take them out when harvesting.
I haven’t and my hive is doing fine. From the photos I have seen, most do not do anything and leave the 2 deg backward slope as is.
Hi Marilyn, this is the design of the Flow Hive bottom board. It allows the honey to flow out of the Flow Frames into the Flow Tubes and out of the hive as quickly as possible.
You will see it in our harvesting guide:
https://www.honeyflow.com/resources/harvesting-checklist/p/197
It is also stated in the manual: