Here is a slatted rack. You can see that the slats follow the ten frames that are in a hive box. this sits between the screened bottom board and the hive body. Using a slatted rack provides the bees with room to spread out as well as more ventilation for the hive.
Bermuda on the left does not have a slatted rack (the one in the picture arrived broken and its replacement arrived from Betterbee today). Destin on the right does have a slatted rack (the unpainted piece at the bottom of the hive.Notice how much smaller the beard is on Destin. It's 90 something degrees in Atlanta this evening. Destin on hot nights like this used to have the biggest beard.
Linda, I am curious if you leave your slatted racks on all winter or if you remove them. I think ventilation is as or more important in winter, but I wouldn't want to make their job harder if the racks should come off in winter.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Jane
Hi Jane, I leave the slatted racks on all winter and I also leave the screened bottom boards on all winter. Of course, I'm in Atlanta where we have relatively mild winters and the hive is never surrounded by snow.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Linda. I'm in Richmond with relatively mild winters also. I've always left the SBBs in but this is my first year to have SRs. Of course, last winter we had snow snow and more snow but the girls came through fine.
ReplyDeleteI was really happy to have the SRs this summer when we had weeks of 100+ temps.