# 3/4” thick slats on slatted rack necessary?



## PHSINV (May 4, 2014)

I’m considering building some slatted racks. Most of the plans I’ve seen and the rack I actually bought use 3/4” square slats and the 4” or so wide platform is also that thick. Since there’s no structural component is there a reason why the slats and platform need to be that thick? If I’m a bee looking down on the rack from above a 3/4 inch thick slat looks the same as a 1/8” thick slat as long as it’s still 3/4” wide. It matters to me because I can cut 1/8” slats with a utility knife but 3/4” slats require a saw. And I’m not a beekeeper who’s in it for the woodworking.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Depends on what you envision the slatted racks doing.

In conventional slatted racks with 3/4 thickness there are often lots of bees hanging out on them, festooning down along them and below.

Whether 1/8" thickness would be supportive enough or not, I don't know.

In my opinion, the best "slatted rack" is one made with no slats at all. This is also known as a shim. I use one under the bottom box in every stack. My bees hang down from the lower edges of the frames, and the queen lays all the way down to the bottom of the frame, and they have some wind/draft protection because the frames are raised up 2" higher than without one, and not having honey that close to the entrance helps with robbing protection, and the shim keeps my OAV wand a bit farther away from the bottom of the frames, most of which of mine re plastic Piercos. But _best of all,_ nothing interferes with free-fall of mites (and other debris) down on to my sticky boards.

So I get all the claimed benefits of a slatted rack without the cost (or in your case the complexity of making it) nor with the interference in debris-tracking on my sticky boards. Plus assembling them is within my skill set, since they come pre-drilled for the eight screws. Even I can get them straight and square.

All of my "real" slatted racks have been repurposed into temporary bases for boxes of bees when they are off the hive during inspections.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

As I understand Miller's idea - it's to provide a space below the combs so that the bees can vacate them whenever it gets hot, whilst preventing the bees from drawing 'wild' comb within that space ... and that's all they were ever intended to do.

But - I leave OMFs (Open Mesh Floors) open all year round and am currently trialling two methods of providing protection against high winds during winter. The first is a 'wooden skirt' sitting below a Deep Long Hive - essentially nothing more than a Long Hive feeder shell without either top or bottom.
The second method is Miller's 'Slatted Rack', as the idea of providing a baffle against high winds rather appealed to me. I've made four of these, to fit below some hybrid framed versions of Warre hives I'm playing with.















At present I only have one of these hives occupied, but it has come though a very unpleasant winter (2x 'weather bombs' of gale force winds with driving snow direct from Siberia), without any problems and with the partial OMF left open at all times.

To answer your question more directly, I can't see that the thickness of the slats makes much difference - but - if you check out Miller's original 'slatted rack', it appears that he may have used an axe to split the wood he used when making it. Just an idea for any non-woodworking beekeepers ...









LJ


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## PHSINV (May 4, 2014)

Thank you enjambres and LJ. I had a couple purposes in mind. One is similar in that I don’t really want to turn my hives into pyres when I do OA tx. I’m also going to single deeps (
different thread) and want to pre-manage swarming tendencies. The shim as you suggest would do that (my shims are the deep to medium conversion leftovers) but I’m hesitant about them burr combing underneath. I’ve put deep frames in a 2 medium super stack and had them do that. The shim without the slats would seem to me to be about the same thing. Again I don’t want to torch my hives when doing OA so I figure the slats would help stop that. Thank you LJ for the photo of Miller’s rack. Haven’t seen it before. And it does look like it was measured with a micrometer, marked with chalk, and cut with an axe. So much for fine cabinetry in a hive- thanks!


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

One or two of my colonies will occasionally draw a little 1" - 1.5" stub down from under a frame (never with stores or brood). I suspect it's more of a form of ladder comb than anything else. It is a complete non-issue. My shims are 2" high - if they were taller it might be different. I usually don't scrape them off in the summer when I am not OAVing. I mark the top of the frame so I know to expect it when I am pulling the frame out.

Before OAVing I always get down and look inside with a flashlight to make sure I am not going to be jamming the wand into a group of festooning bees. If there are any bees I shift 'em upwards with my smoker, first. 

I often treat other people's bees in stacks without the shim and it makes me very nervous. Once or twice, I have scorched the bottom of a frame.

Why not try some shims before going to the trouble of making slatted boards? I think you'll be so happy with them, you'll never see the need for more.

One of the things I've noticed about feral hives is that they mostly don't have comb really close to the entrance, certainly not just 3/4ths of an inch away. 

I run triple deeps most of the year.

Nancy


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

I used the free beescource plan.
http://beesource.com/build-it-yourself/slatted-bottom-rack/
I have them on all my hive for now. 
I just posted in case you did want a plan to build by instead of a shim. 
Cheers
gww


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Back in the good old days before slatted racks had the bars parallel to the frames, the bars were perpendicular to the frames and they and the 4" wide front piece were only 3/8" thick. The Beesource plans show that style. I still have many of those, some with broken bars. The 3/4" thick bar is definitely the way to go. A 1/8" slat would be way too fragile.


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## Jim_in_PA (May 17, 2016)

little_john said:


> As I understand Miller's idea - it's to provide a space below the combs so that the bees can vacate them whenever it gets hot, whilst preventing the bees from drawing 'wild' comb within that space ... and that's all they were ever intended to do.


This. While a shim can certainly provide space for the bees to hang out, it doesn't enforce "bee space". The slats help with that as the top of them is approximately 3/8" below the bottom of the frames. This helps with significant reduction of comb creation on the bottom of the frames in the bottom box.

Like anything...slat boards are just an option that a beek can use if they want to. Shims are also perfectly valid as is using nothing at all other than the bottom board. We do use the slat boards and our bees, so far, seem to be comfortable with that arrangement.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Jim,

With all due respects to CC Miller and the Received Wisdom of Beekeeping, I know that's the theory about why slatted boards are supposed to work better than a shim, but do they? I started with slatted boards because that's what I read about. But the boards interfered with the free fall of all the hive debris down on to my sticky boards, which was an important defect from my point of view. I still wanted some of the draft protection and also more room for my OAV wand so I thought I'd try using just a shim, instead. 

To my surprise, it created none of the predicted issues of bees using the space to make wild combs in the opening and complicate my beekeeping. As I said, I only rarely have a bit of comb drawn below frames into the void of the shim. (Curiously this usually happens during winter, too, for some reason, even though all my bees use a top entrance during the cold season. I can't imagine what draws them down there as they don't use the bottom entrance at all when it's frigid.) This is always dry comb, with none of the cells filled and I think it functions mostly as a ladder comb more than anything. 

So I removed, and repurposed, all my slatted boards and installed shims instead. 

This has been my experience with my bees and it's certainly possible it's unusual. (Though most of my students also set their stacks up this way, on my advice, and they see the same results.) If you have tried using a shim, instead of a slatted board, and as a result have seen comb-drawing problems related that would be interesting to hear about. My stacks tend to be roomier than most so that may make a difference, too. 

There are at least two ways to do everything in beekeeping, and the best way for any particular beekeeper is to hear about all of them and then try things out on their own. 

Nancy


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## JeffM17 (Jul 19, 2013)

I think 3/4" is used for a couple of reasons... Standard 1x stock is 3/4" thick, so taking a 1x4 board you can make several 3/4" cuts and get 3/4" x 3/4" slats. I also noticed building my last slatted rack the bottom of my frames were 3/4" so this lines up as well.

As for 1/8" I could be concerned about it being able to hold up without sagging or breaking. Sounds like a table saw is in your future. Do you have a local bee club in your area, perhaps other members have table saw with wood working skills and can help...


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

One major difference between Miller's Ladder-Rack, and more modern versions of it - is that his were intended to be inserted into a Bottom-Board cavity as required, rather than being a fixed structure (as I and others have made them).



> BOTTOM-BOARD.
> 
> The bottom-board is a plain box, two inches deep, open at one end. It is made of six pieces of 7/8 stuff; two pieces 22-1/2 x 2, one piece 12-1/8 x 2, and three pieces 13-7/8 x 7-1/2. When so desired, the bottom-board is fastened to the hive by means of four staples 1-1/2 in. wide, with points 3/4 inch long (Fig. 11).
> With such a bottom-board there is a space two inches deep under the bottom-bars, a very nice thing in winter, and at any time when there is no danger of bees building down, but quite too deep for harvest-time. Formerly I made the bottom-board reversible, reversing it in summer so as to use the shallow side, but latterly I leave the deep side up summer and winter.
> ...



With regard to the OP's question of dimensions: Miller used battens of 3/8" width (very nominal !), with a thickness of 3/16" - as highlighted above. 

But - like many beekeeping gizmos - it's usefulness (or not) is very much a question of personal preference. A similar example can be seen in the use of dividers - Charles Dadant considering them more-or-less essential, in contrast to Miller's indifference, finding that an empty drawn comb performed equally as well. One possible explanation for this however might be found in Miller's preference for 9" frames, as opposed to Dadant's preference for much deeper frames and with more of them per box.
LJ


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

LJ


> his were intended to be inserted into a Bottom-Board cavity as required, rather than being a fixed structure (as I and others have made them).


Are you trying to say his intention was not to leave the rack on year round?
Cheers
gww


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

gww said:


> LJ
> 
> 
> Are you trying to say his intention was not to leave the rack on year round?
> ...


Well - I guess it's how one interprets: "With such a bottom-board there is a space two inches deep under the bottom-bars, a very nice thing in winter, and at any time when there is no danger of bees building down, but quite too deep for harvest-time."

That suggests to me that he kept a clear 2" space below the combs during winter, and perhaps Autumn (Fall) too. But in Spring, just as soon as the dandelions bloom, then he'd insert the rack to prevent any building down of comb into that space.

So I think he's talking about using the ladder-rack/slatted-rack 'dynamically' - i.e. insert them only when needed during Spring and Summer (when comb building takes place) - otherwise remove them. At least that's how I'm interpreting that paragraph.

Which fits-in with the photograph of the rack - which is noticeably less wide than the box - suggesting that it's an 'insertable' (is that a word ?) piece of kit.

LJ


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

LJ


> At least that's how I'm interpreting that paragraph


How I interpeted that paragragh was that he reconized the bennefit of the space but that it had its problims and that is why his ideal of adding slats should be considered genious. I took it as explaining the reason to have slats, not that he used two differrent shims.

It is a mute point but I have the slats on all year and winter and summer there seems to be benifit. I have had zero issue with comb in the slatted rack but think if you got the bee space wrong, you could have and I have seen oddfranks pictures of a slatted rack full of comb.

I don't write this as a critque of nancys use of only a shim, just as a clarification of something you pointed out that I did not understand. I do think that the paragragh is open to interpitation and if you read the heading on the plan from bee scource that I posted a link to, it seems to make the case of year long benifits. I have read in other places that the slats have the added benifit of keeping mice from getting to the comb. I don't know how much creedence to put to that either but so far so good.
Cheers
gww


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## Knisely (Oct 26, 2013)

I can see the benefit of having a shim under the colony as a way of preventing scorching of the brood frames when doing OAV treatments. Is anyone running a slatted rack atop a shim under their brood frames? (Brood frames above slatted rack above shim.) I wonder how that'd work.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

kinsly
If you look at the plan from beescorce that I posted a link to, it is a shim with slats to keep bee space correct to keep bur comb from being built.
Cheers
gww


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Ladder combs under old style slatted rack


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## JeffM17 (Jul 19, 2013)

Knisely said:


> I can see the benefit of having a shim under the colony as a way of preventing scorching of the brood frames when doing OAV treatments. Is anyone running a slatted rack atop a shim under their brood frames? (Brood frames above slatted rack above shim.) I wonder how that'd work.


I run my OAV treatments from under my screen bottom board with a slatted rack directly above that and brood chamber above that. I have an opening the rear of the hive below the screen bottom board from which I place a solid insert that I covered in metal. This gives me a good 6"+ of space between the OAV wand and my brood chamber.


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## PHSINV (May 4, 2014)

So here’s what I wound up doing. Instead of taxing my meager woodworking skills (and tools) I took a ~2” shim (remnant of a deep to medium amputation) and a sheet of 3/4” plywood that Bigbox was happy to cut into 16.25” strips for me. Then I cut a bunch of 3/4” slats and a 4” platform with a circ saw and a clamp-guide rail. Instead of joints to put it together I screwed “rails” into the inside of the 2” shim and then screwed the slats and platform to these rails. Pictures explain better... I made 3 and used them for packages. I decided to follow Nancy’s suggestion of shims without the slat for 2 nucs.












. For some reason I now forget I had to take it apart. By that time I invested in a pneumatic brad nailer from Harbor Freight and put it back together with brads.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Pretty ingenious if you ask me. My one comment would be that your slats look to be a little wide at the gap. About 3/8th inch might cause you less problims with bur comb. I like your solutions but might have made the shim deeper and worried more about the slat gaps but did see miller himself use rough cut looking stuff and bet it works.
Cheers
gww


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