Keep the hive above water to prevent mites from entering from the soil?

[drmanhadan]

Keeping the hive on bricks sitting in a pan of water (treated). What do yall think of that?
Major advantages or disadvantages?

[KQ6AR]

Mites enter the hive on the bees. The bees pick them up in the field or when they enter other hives.

[Solomon Parker]

Perhaps you are referring to small hive beetles.

[thenance007]

My first summer I made a "moat" with a frame of 2 x 4s (not nailed together, just sitting in a square) and a plastic tarp draped over it, filled with about an inch of water. Hive on 2 concrete blocks in the moat. The moat sloped enough that one edge was shallow and the bees could crawl on the tarp to drink or get out of the water. The bad news: It was on my raised deck and over a year, that corner of the deck sank about 3 inches. Aside from that (and the one windy day when the new heavily laden bees missed the landing board and went for an unexpected swim and had to be rescued with my handy dandy chinese wok screened ladle,) I think it did drown SHB larvae that dropped into it and also provided some cooling to the hive in 100 degree temps and a handy source of water. I wouldn't treat the water for that reason. When it started looking too scuzzy or smelly, I slid one of the 2 x 4s out and let it drain, then refilled it. The dead bees they dropped out of the hive did make it smelly pretty quickly. Don't think it is worth doing again.

[drmanhadan]

Good points, but wouldn't those have just fallen onto the dry ground anyways? Otherwise, I suppose the water's not a great idea.

[sfisher]

SHB fly in.