Underfloor Entrance Plans

This style of design was shared by Emyr Jenkins on the beekeeping forum and similar designs have been used in floors you can buy from Thorne.

Underfloor vs Standard Floor

Advantages

• Reduced wasp issues - The hives with these floors seem to get less wasp issues at the end of the summer compared to traditional national floors.
• Easier to move - They have the same footprint as the brood box meaning if you need to move multiple hives they'll stack next to each other nicely on the back of a pickup. Floors with a landing board that sticks out aren't so easy and will take up more space on the truck.

Disadvantages

• Harder to Vap - If you treat your bees with oxalic acid sublimation then you'll need either an additional hole in the brood area or crownboard for the vaporiser to point into.
• Slightly longer to make - They are easy and cheap to make but compared to the standard floor it'll probably take a few more minutes to make.

Open Mesh Floor

In the design I'm using I have a small area with for an open mesh floor. If you don't want an open mesh floor then just leave it out.

Material

For the open mesh floor I used stainless steel woven wire mesh, 0.7mm wire with 2.48mm holes from The Mesh Company (link). Since I've only used mesh for part of the floor I could get quite a few out of a single sheet of mesh.

Design Photos

Above: The side view of the underfloor entrance, without mesh installed.

Above: View of the floor from the front.

Above: View of the floor from underneath.

Above: A view of the floor from above.