MESH Floors

Having been convinced of the benefit of MESH floors in National hives I noticed that these are less commmon in the Warre community. Today I came across a YouTube showing their use.
I had rationalised the non-use in Warre hives as a heat conservation measure but am not totally convinced. Any opinions, particularly for a temperate climate ( Southern UK)

I have hard floor in my trough hives and mesh in the langstroth type and see no differens
in the dropping of mites .and the hard floor ones do start first in the morning
besides the hard floor for warré is so easy build that i dont bother making mesh ones now.

Hasn't David Heaf mentioned some fact about how open mesh hives consume more honey than closed bottoms?

Thanks. I've looked through the Yahoo lists (not to my taste - v time consuming, but I may be missing technique). Couldn't find reference to temperature from D Heaf, but now understand that mesh floors are fairly common in Warre.

I like the sump mod bush 84 describes better than mesh

Ok so I can't post links....lame. Anyways do a google search for Warre Biobees sump. There's a whole page dedicated to sumps.

Good info there from David Heaf.


You can also have your cake and eat it to.

Another link was supposed to be here. Do a search for thewarrestore dot com. They have a sump with a screened bottom.

You don't need a solid bottom on a sump if you don't want, but I have solid bottoms on mine.

Bush I will check into the link posting problem and see if I can fix it. It lets me post links so I am not sure what's going on but I will find out.

Jon

Linking fixed. Resume discussion about mesh floors! Personally I think the solid floor is easier to build and that's really the point of the Warré at the end of the day.

Does this picture of a sump floor/varroa screen help?

I fully agree with John, however, and have turned against using varroa screens on all my hives because I don't like there being a space within the colony that the bees cannot get to - after all they are the best at cleaning/sterilising their own homes. Also it messes up their thermoregulation.

It's well worth reading Ed Clark's book "Constructive Beekeeping" and some of the modern support for this old idea on some of the natural beekeeping forums. Personally I think there may be something major in this as it all ties in with the nestduftwärmebindung concept.

Robin