Hello All
 
The bees are now flying well on mild days. Whilst watching them today I
started comparing the ease with which the bees returned to the one hive I
had equipped with a landing board, with the other hives which did not have a
landing board. It appeared to me that the advantages lay with the landing
board. On many occasions I saw bees on the point of complete exhaustion (so
it seemed to me), fail to catch the meagre foot hold at the entrance and
fall to the grass. With the temperature barely above the point at which the
bees can fly, some became immobilised and failed to take off from the cold
wet grass. I also feel (but without any direct evidence), that the landing
board gives the guard bees a better opportunity to have a good look at each
arriving bee to check that it is not a robber.
 
It also appears that the bees have a much harder time landing when the hive
is fitted with a varroa wire mesh, as they must obviously land on the mesh
rather than on a solid surface as heretofore.
 
So I cut out some rectangles from stiff plastic to act as crude landing
boards which I pushed in under the entrance block of each hive, and over the
next hour or so I got the impression that there was a considerable
improvement in the bees landing behaviour. Few if any bees fell to the ground.
 
What do the members think of landing boards?.
 
Sincerely
 
Tom Barrett
49 South Park
Foxrock
Dublin 18
Ireland
 
Hobbyist beekeeper
 
e mail [log in to unmask]
Tel + 353 1 289 5269
Fax + 353 1 289 9940
 
Latitude  53 Degrees 16' North
Longitude  6 Degrees  9' West of Greenwich