Hive Floors: OMF’s vs Solid

Many beekeepers still have (myself included) solid floors with extended built in flight boards. These seem to have more Cons than Pros especially if the flight board is not angled down and away from the hive.

A flight board isn’t really needed. Their only real use is to allow tired or older bees to land by dropping down on the board and running into the entrance. In nature bees rarely will find anything like this. How wonderful you might think!

If the flight board is not angled down and away from the entrance, especially with solid floors, rainwater can run into the hives. As recently seen, even with a light snow fall, entrances become blocked limiting or stopping airflow. Certainly more beekeepers are using OMF’s (open mesh floors) but I have started using solid floors again. No real reason, except these are more sturdy and seem to last longer than some of the bargain OMF’s on the market and can work out cheaper. There are advantages and disadvantages alike. When treating bees with thymol/vapour based products with an OMF in place you can overdose with little harm as the vapours fall through the mesh. Since using OMF’s I have had no bees clustering outside hives when being treated with thymol. However, if using a solid floor, far less thymol is needed to be effective and certainly an overdose is likely to kill the bees, or failing this, they may abscond with or without the queen. Another advantage using OMF’s; entrances can be kept quite small over the whole season as plenty of ventilation comes in from below.

I would suggest beginners forget using landing boards unless it is short, angled and possibly a removable one. If you are not convinced and planning to make one do not let it touch the ground. Any ill or dying bees that can nolonger fly, are unlikely to get back into the hive to spread disease. Bees landing on the ground could also pick up varroa mites that have fallen through an OMF.