I published a post a little over a year ago about the slatted racks I had made for my hives. A slatted rack is essentially a shallow eke fitted with slats which is placed above the mesh floor (US: screened bottom board) and below the brood box. Slatted racks are in widespread use in the US and are commercially available for 8, 9, and 10 frame Langstroth hives. I am not aware that they are available in the UK for National hives so I made my own. They have now been in place in my hives for a year and the recent merger of two hives to deal with a drone-laying queen allowed me to look more closely at one rack. This is how it looks after one year.
The advantages of a slatted rack include:
1. It restores bee space below the brood frames, something lacking when the brood box is immediately above the floor.
2. It provides extra space for bees to hang out and reduces overcrowding, and perhaps discourages swarming.
3. It reduces draughts and keeps the hive warmer in winter.
4. It assists ventilation and keeps the hive cooler in summer.
5. It encourages the queen to lay right to the bottom of the brood frames.
6. It may also discourage the bees from chewing through the lowest part of the foundation.
For me the main advantage is the complete absence of burr comb under the brood frames which makes swapping frames around in a double brood hive much easier. You can see here there is no comb on the bottom of the frames.
Langstroth hives have top bee space so commercially available slatted racks have the bee space built into the top. Modified National hives, on the other hand, have bottom bee space so I built my slatted racks with the tops of the slats flush with the frame.
It is important that each slat is directly underneath each frame. As the National hive takes 11 frames and a dummy board I offset the slats slightly to accommodate this.
The bees seem happy with them, and I am, so I'll continue to use slatted racks on my hives year round.
In my last post I mentioned the unexpected finding of drones outside the hives before the first inspection, wondering whether they might have overwintered undetected or whether there might be a more sinister explanation. Eventually the weather warmed up enough for a first look inside the hives. Three were doing well but inside the fourth this was the appearance.
Here is another frame.
There were five frames with eggs, larvae and sealed brood but none of it was worker brood - a tell-tale sign of a drone laying queen. Here is a closer view of the brood.
Eventually I spotted the queen - not easy as she was unmarked in a hive with lots of drones.
The interesting thing is that this is the hive that had two yellow-marked queens on 30th August last year and one of them was still present on my last inspection on 24th September, with normal worker brood. Both last year's marked queens were very dark. The present queen has different colouring and no trace of a yellow mark, so she must have been a very late replacement last year, too late to get mated. The thing that puzzles me is why the bees replaced the other two who were both new and at least one of them was producing normal worker bees (that is where the overwintering workers came from). Here is the new queen busy laying eggs, surrounded by the midwives.
It was a fairly simple task to mark her while she was laying, if perhaps a little undignified. This meant I could find her more easily once I had decided what to do.
She ran around for a few moments but soon went back to laying.
This is a potentially recoverable situation as the colony is queenright. It would be possible to replace the queen (except that I don't have a spare). It would also be possible to remove the queen, give a frame of eggs from another hive and let the bees raise a new queen. However, that would mean a delay of three or four weeks before the new queen was laying and six or seven weeks before she produced new worker bees. The present workers have overwintered and won't last much longer. As I have more hives than I really want, and one of the others is a bit small, I have decided to remove the drone-laying queen and unite her colony with the other. Then at least these workers can join the workforce while they last.
The bees have had a miserable time recently. It feels as if we have had nothing but rain for weeks so they have mostly been confined to barracks. I expect they were bored and frustrated so it was no surprise to see so many out in the sunshine these past two days. At one stage it seemed as if every returning forager was carrying pollen. And pollen collection is a good sign that things are going well inside.
The pollen colours were mostly yellow and orange with a few bees collecting pink, white or cream.
These bees had obviously found a good source of pollen. Many were stopping on the outside of the hives on their return, perhaps for a bit more grooming, or to catch a bit of sunshine, or to get their breath back.
This one returned covered in pollen but with none in her pollen baskets.
After taking the photos I put in boards under the mesh floors for a varroa count over the next week. While I was doing so I glanced across at the next hive to see a queen on the landing board! At second glance it was a queen wasp, looking as though it wanted to get into the hive. I ran for the camera but the wasp had disappeared by the time I got back, probably moved on by the guards.
I was very surprised to see a few drones outside the hives. It is very early for drones and I wonder if these few had managed to survive the cull last autumn and had only just been discovered by the workers. This poor chap has a deformed wing so despite my efforts with formic acid last summer and oxalic acid in the winter it suggests there is still a problem.
I haven't yet been able to do an inspection because of the weather but I am very keen to have a look in to see what is going on.
