The Vita Europe Apishield is designed to replace the existing hive floor and has a number of features. These include:

The hive entrance comes up into the brood box from underneath. The idea is to provide the bees with an extended tunnel that is more defendable than a normal hive entrance; this is certainly a concept that has been found useful in stopping wasps getting past the guard bees in hives.

Four openings on each side lead hornets and wasps into a cassette i.e. trap, fitted with cone escapes.

The odour of the hive permeates the OMF (open mesh floor) to attract wasps and hornets into the trap.

The trap performed well in INRA (Institut National de la Recherché Agronomique) tests towards the end of the season when hornets are desperate for food and trying to find ways into the hive and there are reports from beekeepers that it is extremely effective at catching wasps!  I believe it to be an essential weapon in the armoury and I have one for every hive, but I must emphasise the need to treat the wood and to check that the cassette slides out when a brood box is placed on top. I had to plane down every one of the five that I bought.

One can cut an insert sheet to fit over the mesh in the cassette for the purpose of varroa monitoring, but you really would not want to use the cassette itself for that purpose especially if it were full of angry hornets. I decided to keep the normal OMF and put the Vita Europe Apishield underneath, blocking off the feature entrance and ensuring that any gap in the normal OMF can be sealed at the rear when wasps and hornets are about.