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the "eco floor"

25K views 69 replies 15 participants last post by  odfrank 
#1 ·
I ran across this video a week ago and became intrigued. I have heard many times before that the beehive is more than just bees - various bacteria and fungi live in there and help the ecology of the hive. I am curious if anyone has any information on this hive floor or has perhaps tried anything similar. I could see this thing going really well or terribly wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWB-pdlqeFQ
 
#2 ·
Benefits? I can't think of any.

Drawbacks? It provides an area for mice, termites, wood-ants etc to live. The mice might introduce black plague to your honey... wood ants and termites will eat the hive. Water could collect there and cause mold to grow.
 
#3 ·
I tried having a box for debris below the hive. If you screen it off, then the bees can't police it and SHB and wax moths get more populous. If you don't screen it off, they haul it out for trash and fill the space with comb. I couldn't see any real benefit to it and some things were worrisome if it was screened off, like SHB and wax moths gone wild...

Screened it was unnatural beause the bees couldn't police it. Not screened make a mess of comb on the bottom of the frames. I like the concept, I just don't see how to implement it well.
 
#4 ·
I have seen quite a lot of discussion on the eco-floors use in the UK. Recently there has been quite a lot about including the pseudo-scorpions to aid in varroa control and obviously we have yet to have SHB to deal with. The material to be used needs to be organic material which is too large for the bees to remove, better success has been had with woodchips that have had time to season outside of the hive to allow volatile oils to dissipate, and general flora build up. Generally, we are waiting to see how the colonies wintered on the deep floors have performed compared to those overwintered in standard bottoms. But the "feeling" of the people using them seems to be that the colonies seem healthy and happy. I don't know whether or not this is more natural environment for the bees or not but some the arguments put forward with regard to temperature/humidity/moisture control certainly make logical sense with regard to buffering or more effectively resisting rapid changes.
 
#5 ·
Thanks, AugustC.
As I said above, I could see this going really well or really, really bad. Then again, the point of experimentation is to determine which outcome will result.
That makes sense about the larger wood chips, and there need to be aged. As Bluegrass stated above, it could potentially provide a breeding ground for bad things, but the idea, as I understand it, is that this particular environment also is perfect for the pest predators.
Is the bottom you are testing similar to what was made in the video or quite different? Is there somewhere updates on the experiment are being posted?
Thanks in advance for any information you can give me.
Allen
 
#7 ·
this particular environment also is perfect for the pest predators.
I think this is a good time to talk the predator/prey relationship and relay the story of the Asian Longhorned Beetle. We hear about this invader all the time here in the northeast, we see the survey traps hanging in roadside trees all summer long. We hear how they are destroying our forests and states are cracking down of firewood sellers trying to stop the spread. But why is this bug so detrimental to our forests, but live in balance with the forests back were they come from? It is a predator/pray relationship. The beetle larva on their native turf is a main food source for woodpeckers. We have woodpeckers here, but they don't consider the Beetle Larva food because they didn't evolve together, so our woodpeckers don't eat the larva and keep the beetles in check.

When it come to natural predators of the Varroa mite it is a safe bet that we do not have any. I wouldn't assume that the predatory insects around the bottom of your hives are going to do anything with the dropped mites unless you physically observe them doing so or some research comes out that indicates they do.
 
#6 ·
My interest started because of what I would find in the bottom of healthy colonies I would remove from trees. Usually a pile of detritus at the bottom, full of ants, beetles, mites, centipedes, pseudo scorpions, sow bugs, wax moth larvae, cockroaches etc.

I'm just not sure how to recreate it in a managed box without ending up with wild comb hanging from the bottoms of the frames in the bottom box...
 
#18 ·
Since I am thinking to try this project this summer (time/kids permitting), pulled this up.

Really a non-issue:
how to recreate it ..... without ending up with wild comb hanging
Have to have frames tall enough and under-frame buffer large enough to give the natural spacing.

All the issues originate from running excessively shallow boxes with virtually no under-frame space (be it KTBH or Lang) where bees are really wanting to build down as they naturally would like to do (but artificially placed floors cut them off).
I am yet to see even a single case of bees building under my frames (~19" tall) with enough under-frame space (2-3").
Even with open, unrestricted frames, they naturally stop within 2-3 inches off the floor
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#8 ·
>When it come to natural predators of the Varroa mite it is a safe bet that we do not have any.

Actually, we do, and they would live in the detritus at the bottom of a hive...

A search on google will give you a bunch of videos where you can watch pseudo scorpions eat Varroa mites:
https://www.google.com/#q=scorpion+eating+varroa+mite&tbm=vid
 
#10 ·
And then there is Stratiolaelaps which is a mite that would also live in the detritus and also eats Varroa... not to mention fire ants eating Varroa...

>as part of 'spring cleaning' i have been scraping my bottom boards clean with the hive tool. would it be better not to?

The jury is still out... I don't know. I clean mine figuring the bees will eventually and I'll save them the work while I'm there...
 
#11 ·
I will have to look into this more. It looks like some research has been done in New Zealand with a native species there that was promising. Briefly looking I see very little that mentions specific species or any native to North America...... Remember not all woodpeckers eat Asian long-horned beetle larva.

I don't have fire ants and don't want any, I don't care what they eat :D
 
#14 ·
>I'm just not sure how to recreate it in a managed box without ending up with wild comb hanging from the bottoms of the frames in the bottom box...

Have a matching 1/4" screen on the top of the eco floor or grid similar to a slatted rack.
 
#17 ·
Thinking out loud.
how about using a router to cut pyrmaids into the bottom board? Similar to the pattern they use for sound proofing, or a waffle iron. The peaks may keep extra comb to a minimum and the valleys would be habitat.
 
#19 ·
also just thinking out loud... my bees work hard to clean their floor and I will respect that, plus moving bars is easier with a uniform floor, having said that.....insulation and humidity buffer are good things.

I would think a slatted rack as the floor for the bees to draw comb to, and then the aged wood chips below, maybe in a drawer you can remove or hinges open, could do the trick.

I would suggest having something to measure the humidity, temps, in a hive with and without eco floor... could raise more questions than it answers, but would be interesting. For those who do Broodminder etc.

And as for the floor of a regular hive, with debris build up... because the hive debris organic materials are pretty different from wood chips, I would wager not good things would grow there. The kind of things that bees would prefer to propolize off. Just a thought, no documentation or anything. So again I am following the bee behavior for this suggestion - they prefer clean.
 
#20 ·
There is a saying "bees know best".

I'm cautious of this saying because it is often used or mis used, to try to justify all kinds of crazy ideas.

However, a wild hive in a tree is typically very clean. Contrary to the idea that the wood is part rotten with cracks that harbor all kinds of other creatures, in an established hive the bees actually coat the wood with a wax / propolis mix, and from the bees perspective everything is clean and tidy. Junk at the hive bottom is also removed by the bees, the only exception being if the architecture of the cavity is such that junk accumulates well away from the cluster, too far for the bees to bother going down and retrieving.
 
#21 ·
I don't see it as a pile of trash, btw.
I rather see it as 3-4 inch (10cm) tall, detachable bottom box;
totally breathable through (but not drafty);
full of compacted wood shavings, stick, bark - tightly packed into the box (a sandwich);
fine mesh below - to keep the filler from falling through;
1/2" inch mesh above to allow bees to get inside the box as they see fit;

The filler material should be dry and ventilated.
So it will be kind of a breathing, thick, warm floor, possibly full of fauna (or not).
I don't want it to be moldy and moist.

Similar to this:
https://beetreehives.com/products/bee-tree-hive-base
 
#22 ·
As an experiment, I kept 2 hives on solid floors over winter - one with a bottom entrance, one with top. On inspection, both hives - although the colonies survived - showed signs of having been very wet: frame lugs having turned black etc. The build-up of detritus on the solid bottom board had provided a breeding ground for wax moths. Regardless of the theory, I find that in practice, bees do not clear away debris from beehives.

So - back to Open Mesh Floors, where the rubbish can fall out onto the ground, as well as providing much needed ventilation.
LJ
 
#23 ·
But you say that was over winter, plus issues such as water show the bees were likely in a cluster. To properly test your belief you should surely do it over a whole season to see what bees will do when they can?

Bees cleaning the bottom board is not a theory, it's something most of us observe regularly, and we will often see a build up of rubbish over winter, which bees will clean as best they can, once things warm up and enable them to do it. If they can, they will do it.
 
#24 ·
But you say that was over winter, plus issues such as water show the bees were likely in a cluster. To properly test your belief you should surely do it over a whole season to see what bees will do when they can?
That would mean having solid bottom boards on all year long. Not a chance.

In that post I was referring to just 2 hives I tested over winter. Over the years I've observed many other hives which have had partial OMF's (hence partial solid floors) within which there's always been a build-up of detritus on the solid floor area. Which is why 'bottom-board cleaning' has become such a necessary routine each any every season - and why I've gone to the trouble of designing a custom bottom-board assembly which facilitates bottom-board removal to make such cleaning as easy as possible (i.e. without shifting boxes).

FWIW, much to my surprise (and delight) when I inspected one of my experimental 'National-Warre' hives a few days ago - the hive was "as clean as a whistle" and required no attention at all - but, it was fitted with a slatted-rack over a (50% area) OMF - the OMF being directly below the slats. And no sign of any excessive moisture over winter.

I'm not making any claims ... only reporting what I have observed.
LJ
 
#26 ·
I may have an explanation ...

It's all to do with particle size. If the particles of detritus can be kept separated, then the bees may indeed be physically able to shift it - but - if detritus collects on a solid floor and then has water added to it (as can happen when the bees are clustered during winter under conditions of inadequate ventilation) then mould quickly develops and a fairly 'solid' mass is duly formed. The bees are then - for all intents and purposes - unable to shift this, or at best can only 'pick at it' - and so the level of detritus continues to build up.

When I later apply a scraper to this mass during routine maintenance, it comes away from the board in chunks, as a thick (circa 1/4" - 3/8") sheet (*) - there's no way bees could ever lift such a mass. Once this mass has been lifted clear of the board, only then does it tend to crumble into smaller pieces.

With Open Mesh Floors, the detritus falls through the mesh whilst it is still of a small particle size, and any water descending to the floor passes though it anyway - so the problem never gets to manifest itself.

Again, I'm only reporting what I observe and experience, and in this case hypothesise.
LJ

(*) I have seen detritus as much as an inch thick (i.e. in contact with the bottom bars) when salvaging badly neglected hives ... which have been fitted with solid floors.
 
#27 ·
I'll go with that theory John. If the rubbish gets waterlogged and goes into a solid lump, once the weather improves and bees are active enough to get to it, they may do what they do with anything nasty they can't move, which is cover it with a coat of propolis. At that point it will feel hard, even to our touch.
 
#28 · (Edited)
#31 ·
Maybe we need the right fungus and the right mites (Pseudoscorpions etc.) living in the detritis.
Maybe. Doubt it.

In 2013 I was breeding pseudoscorpions as varroa control and released them into hives, also into the two hives living in my house. I never again saw a scorpion for years up right now. A couple of weeks ago I was astonished to see a pseudoscorpion crawling in my bathroom.

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Didn't help much with varroa, though. You need hundreds of them for a slight effect on varroa. Since those scorpions mate once a year and need two years to ripe into an adult, breedings hundreds of them for a single hive is simply impossible.
 
#38 ·
I've been doing cutouts and removals for 45 years. Any colony that has been there very long has a layer of wax cappings etc. and is full of wax moth worms, ants, debris beetles, ants etc. The bees were doing fine and ignoring them. The first time I did a removal I was shocked by this and thought it was a bad sign, but the bees were fine and they did fine after I removed them.
 
#45 ·
Maybe we have different bees. My bees clean outside also, if there are dead bees in the grass withing a foot or two of the entrance they pick them up and fly away with them.

Next week i am starting the final wintering down round, (going into winter here). The only time i ever scrape a bottom board is if there has been some kind of hive disaster or death, and the whole hive needs a cleanup. Other than that I never scrape them because it destroys the little nodes the bees build on them to get a lift up onto the frame bottoms.

So I'll get a pic of a typical bottom board that's been on a hive a few years and never been scraped, and post it here.
 
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