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Author Topic: Standard length for bottom board?  (Read 11758 times)

Offline CapnChkn

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Standard length for bottom board?
« on: July 28, 2017, 09:13:10 pm »
What is the standard length for a bottom board?

Plans are showing a 22 inch length.
"Thinking is like sin, them that doesn't is scairt of it, and them that does gets to liking it so much they can't quit!"  -Josh Billings.

Offline jimineycricket

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2017, 11:33:11 pm »
That's what the plans I use call for.  22"
jimmy

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2017, 01:14:24 am »
You can make it any length that you need. You can also make it 19 7/8", exactly the same as the brood box. It does not make any difference to the bees.
Jim
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Offline tycrnp

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2017, 01:18:42 am »
Most of our are 22" but some are longer, but Jim's right....the bees use them all.

Offline little john

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2017, 04:45:19 am »
Isaac Hopkins used to make his 24" long - thusly:




...  and moved the brood box in order to vary the entrance size.
LJ
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Offline CapnChkn

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2017, 06:42:45 am »
I make mine all 21 inches.  I have some that are just as big as the box, and I find I have to modify them.
"Thinking is like sin, them that doesn't is scairt of it, and them that does gets to liking it so much they can't quit!"  -Josh Billings.

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #6 on: August 01, 2017, 02:01:34 pm »
Mine are all 19 7/8".
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Offline CapnChkn

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #7 on: August 02, 2017, 01:13:37 am »
But all your hives have a top entrance, don't they Michael?

I'm trying to make robber screens that will fit every bottom board.  And yes, I understand the mechanics of the things.  I lost every hive I had in the backyard last year to robbers.  We had a drought, unusual in Alabama, for 3 months, and I'm now surrounded by suburbs.  I've had more problems here with SHB, DWV, and probably some alphabet soup I didn't recognize, than I have ever seen before.  In contrast, I had a swarm with a very good, and well bred queen, move into an empty nuc box.

I came up with the idea of making screens like shoes.  Different sizes.
"Thinking is like sin, them that doesn't is scairt of it, and them that does gets to liking it so much they can't quit!"  -Josh Billings.

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #8 on: August 07, 2017, 04:36:41 pm »
>But all your hives have a top entrance, don't they Michael?

They do but I would make them that size no matter what.  I don't like to help the mice get in.
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Offline Eric Bosworth

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #9 on: August 23, 2017, 01:35:26 pm »
They do but I would make them that size no matter what.  I don't like to help the mice get in.

Top entrances help with that. I also use top entrances I don't see any reason to have bottom entrances. Just use a bottom board the same size as the brood box and if you want a bottom entrance make one but that is an invitation for mice, when the hive is covered in snow, it covers the entrance so that they can't go make bathroom flights on a warm winter day and it allows moisture in during a snow melt. Give me top entrances any day.
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Offline Acebird

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2017, 02:33:05 pm »
I prefer the majority of the bees go out the bottom and use a mouse guard in the fall.
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Offline little john

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #11 on: August 23, 2017, 06:58:32 pm »
I don't see any reason to have bottom entrances.

One reason is because a top entrance together with an Open Mesh Floor will create a through-draught.  "Horses for courses".
LJ
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Offline Eric Bosworth

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2017, 09:42:47 pm »
I don't see any reason to have bottom entrances.

One reason is because a top entrance together with an Open Mesh Floor will create a through-draught.  "Horses for courses".
LJ
Always location specific. Some hot places might need that... I don't.

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All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party. ---Mao Tse Tung

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. ---Benjamin Franklin

Offline Sour Kraut

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2017, 10:56:04 pm »
24 minus a saw-cut

you can get 10 out of a sheet of plywood if you are OK with the grain being crossways to the entrance, or 8 if you want the grain lengthwise to the hive body

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #14 on: August 23, 2017, 11:12:34 pm »
SK,
Unless you are using the plywood that is impervious to everything, I do not recommend using plywood for hives. They fall apart in a couple of years. Even plywood in my telescoping lids, under metal, are falling apart.
For some reason OSB holds up better than plywood. Problem is it is rough on the hands, very splinterly.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline eltalia

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #15 on: August 24, 2017, 12:30:01 am »
"I don't see any reason to have bottom entrances."

Well there go..!.. how dandy, 'cos I do not see any use for top entrances !  Bees don't see this either
as "bees always go up".... in all things.
Throughly BS is the line spun around nectar to bee transfers in respect of bee miles as bees leg it to comb
4' above the entrance. As a pest intrusion prevention it simply displays a lack of insight into critter
behavior, lifting hives to stands covering way more possible intrusions. As an argument to keep feeders
adjacent an entrance during wintering with "cleansing flights" allowed for I can see the logic yet would
opine there are other methods to achieve the same outcome without the installed hazard of
screwing with the colonies "front door"... a practice which will always complicate colony management
for the BK.

More of importance is the screwing over of airpaths for the colony in having the exhaust forced to the
top of the colony at the expense of food resources and numbers. in reversing the natural attributes of
convection in dealing with enthaply nuances of environmental management by those bees so tasked.

And on the use of ply, and other like "short life" construction materials?
Those convinced "solid timber" is the only product that delivers hive bodies into relative infinity had
best rethink the dream as timber is not a sustainable resource, in it's sawn form, has not been for some
years now. So we see emerge fast growing softwoods which are as much junk timber as are the
composite timber products in terms of longevity.
We BKs have to explore and swap anecdotal outcomes on alternatives, inclusive of protection methods,
leaving aside the prejudices (personal preference) often engrained.
Bottom line is bees do not give a rat's as to the composite of their home. Just checkout most trap-out
stories to find the truth of this. One I did last year was wholly enclosed by 2.5mm metal, with a western
bias, so wholly exposed to full sun for 5hours a day in 40+ extremes.

Much has been written - and explored without record - since the times of ye olde bee scribes taking the
bees out of log hives. Us 21st century BKs should be dealing with the world we have, not that written
about largely as experiment and then forcing those ideas on ourselves in being seen by our contempories
as "adhering to principle".

/rant 0ff

Cheers

Bill

(edit - typos)
« Last Edit: August 24, 2017, 04:46:50 am by eltalia »

Offline little john

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #16 on: August 24, 2017, 05:56:24 am »
I don't see any reason to have bottom entrances.

One reason is because a top entrance together with an Open Mesh Floor will create a through-draught.  "Horses for courses".
LJ
Always location specific. Some hot places might need that... I don't.
I don't understand that line of thinking at all.

The use of bottom entrances is well established in Britain - and more and more people are moving over to Open Mesh Floors as they begin to see the advantages - and this could hardly be described as a 'hot' country !  This configuration allows the top of the hive to remain fully sealed - which mirrors the honey-bee's predeliction for sealing just about everything (if it's allowed to) at the top of the hive with propolis.

Although OMF's were first introduced as an anti-Varroa measure, they are now seen as a useful method of providing the means for downward ventilation whilst the sealed (and insulated) upper hive preserves heat.  In addition, OMF's allow debris to fall clear of the hive body, preventing a build-up which tends to attract and then harbour wax moth.
LJ
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Offline Acebird

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #17 on: August 24, 2017, 08:25:57 am »
By the same token OMF allows and easier access to the hive from wax moth and small hive beetle.
Jim before there was OSB there was plywood.  It is the polymer used to bond the wood together that makes a difference.  When chip board first came out it did not have this weather proof polymer and if left to the elements it would disintegrate in one year.
Brian Cardinal
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Offline Sour Kraut

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #18 on: August 25, 2017, 05:52:44 am »
SK,
Unless you are using the plywood that is impervious to everything, I do not recommend using plywood for hives. They fall apart in a couple of years. Even plywood in my telescoping lids, under metal, are falling apart.
For some reason OSB holds up better than plywood. Problem is it is rough on the hands, very splinterly.
Jim

I have bottom boards of plywood that are going on 7 (SEVEN) years old.

And NOT falling apart.

Please, don't tell me what works and what doesn't here in western IL.

Thank you.


Offline little john

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Re: Standard length for bottom board?
« Reply #19 on: August 25, 2017, 06:22:27 am »
By the same token OMF allows and easier access to the hive from wax moth ...

I've always found that the best way of gaining knowledge is to ask questions, rather than to make ill-informed assumption-based assertions.

Those who use continuously-open Open Mesh Floors do NOT suffer from Wax Moth problems (assuming of course that the colony is queen-right and healthy).
 
Those who unwisely keep the inspection slides in place in the misguided belief that this is their normal operating mode, DO suffer from Wax Moth infestations - the reason being that wax moths lay their eggs in the debris which then builds up in the space between the inspection board and the mesh above it, a space to which the bees cannot gain access. It is this build-up of wax debris which attracts the moths and then harbours their larvae.

That the wax moth manages to lays it's eggs with the inspection slide in place should be indication enough that the wax moth does NOT normally gain access to the hive via the mesh floor route.

Further, wax-moths do NOT present problems within Nucleus Colonies (again, assuming that the Nucleus Colony is queen-right and healthy), precisely because there is not the same level of wax debris build-up (even in solid-floor boxes) as so frequently develops when full-sized colonies are housed over solid floors for any length of time.

Wax debris is THE major source of wax-moth infestations in occupied beehives.
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com