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The HAPPYKEEPER bottom board takes the place of your usual hive floor
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It consists of a wooden frame,
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several tubes and three struts ,
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the tubes are held together by the struts.
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The gaps between the tubes are 3.5 mm;
bees cannot pass through them.
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The illustrated hive is fitted with alternate frames only,
enabling us to see how each tube is located
exactly underneath a brood frame.
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Hive waste as well as Varroa mites fall through the funnel
shaped openings and can be examined under the hive.
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The HAPPYKEEPER bottom board always remains clean and needs no intervention over several years.
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The hive should be set about 20 cm above
the ground.
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The gaps between the tubes provide for an
efficient circulation of air within the hive.
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The bees can expel used air and replace it with fresh air through their fitted floor. The interior atmosphere is thus made optimal for the health and growth of the colony in every season of the year. In the French Mountains, colonies have easily withstood long periods of cold below -10 C.
Some beekeepers have noticed a considerable increase in Varroa mite drop immediately after replacement of an open mesh bottom board with a Happykeeper bottom board. The strictly controlled atmosphere around the cluster makes the bees stronger, healthier, more productive and so better able to get rid of varroa mites. If an infestation rate of 5% or less is found in the Spring, no treatment whatever is needed.
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At a height of about 8 mm, the entrance needs no
further widening in Spring. Robbing is thus
practically eliminated in Summer
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A bottom board permanently clean, keeping bees fully healthy, and requiring little or no anti-varroa treatment, with low risk of robbing : all these advantages give clear evidence that the HAPPYKEEPER bottom board is "the board we install and forget.
FIELD EXPERIMENTS HAVE ALLOWED THESE ADVANTAGES TO BE CHECKED
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The HAPPYKEEPER bottom board has kept an apiary in the Parisian region healthy without any treatment against Varroa mites since the 28th of April1997.
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Protocol controlled trials have been conducted in "Lycée Agricole de Toulouse-Auzeville" from January to October 2005 :
Configuration :
20 Buckfast bee colonies whose queen were sisters, naturally fertilized, 10 on mesh bottom boards and 10 on Happykeeper bottom boards. Last anti-Varroa treatment : August 2004.
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Main results :
1 - Brood surface in May : 25% more on an average with the Happykeeper bottom boards than with the mesh bottom boards.
2 - Varroa infestation rate in Autumn 2005 :
Mesh bottom boards : between 5.4 and 20.1%; 8.9% on average.
Happykeeper bottom boards : between 1.1 and 8.0%; 5.5% on average.
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Comments :
Varroa infestation should quickly decrease during next winter to much less than 5% in colonies fitted with a Happykeeper bottom board. Anti-Varroa treatments should then be useless.
The lack of honey flow at the experiment location, until linden blooming did not allow for the observation of better honey production with the Happykeeper bottom boards, which should have been correlated with the greater brood surface.
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