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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Beard and slatted rack

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. Posted by Picasa

3 comments:

  1. 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.
    Thanks!
    Jane

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  2. 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.

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  3. Thank 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.
    I was really happy to have the SRs this summer when we had weeks of 100+ temps.

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