I'm a Honey Bee Suite groupie basically
, so I bought slatted racks for my first 2 or 3 years of beekeeping, since my climate is very similar to Rusty's. Once I had enough hives that I felt comfortable experimenting a little more, I set up a couple of hives without them to compare. I've noticed very little difference between hives that have them and hives that don't. I do use the ones I own, but like Michael, I haven't seen the need to invest in more.