Varroa Mesh Floor

Inevitably the design of the floor also influences the entrance to the hive.

Varroa mesh floor.

Floors can be as simple as a sheet of ply with three lengths of softwood to raise the brood box up slightly. Varroa floors can also be fitted with a removable slide below the mesh floor. The varroa mite can reproduce only in a honey bee colony. 21 99 including vat at 20.

The species is a vector for at least five debilitating bee viruses. In practice it will be less about 250 square inches allowing for struts and battens. Mesh floors are often said to control varroa. The idea is that mites that accidentally fall from adult bees fall through the screen and become ant food.

The container or pan should be light coloured or clear so the varroa can be easily seen. All of my national hives had varroa floor inserts above solid wood floors but these restrict ventilation far more than an open mesh floor. Some designs and uses these are a selection of designs of open mesh floors called screened bottom boards in the u s that have been generated by different individuals for ventilation or monitoring varroa mite fall. Tbh floor in spring.

The solution is simple a woven wire mesh flooring. However open mesh floors are increasingly preferred providing good air circulation and easy varroa monitoring. They can only thrive in a honey bee colony and if unchecked can spell the end of a hive. It attaches to the body of the bee and weakens the bee by sucking fat bodies.

The main benefit to a mesh floor is that varroa falling from the frames above drop through the metal mesh and meet a chilly end in the grass below. As the mites fall off their bee hosts they will fall through the mesh. All well and good. An open mesh floor could have a ventilation area of 18 by 18 totalling 324 square inches.

Varroa destructor varroa mite is an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on the honey bees apis cerana and apis mellifera the disease caused by the mites is called varroosis. It is thought that up to 20 of hatching varroa may drop out of the hive this way. National hive varroa floor black epoxy steel 8 mesh 2 48mm aperture 0 7mm wire diameter 400mm x 500mm x 4 in stock. The list at the top left identifies some of the types by the name of the inventor or proponent of the design.

Primarily these are used to count the numbers of varroa mites but i find the other detritus more interesting.