My hive is made up of outer and inner covers, two hive boddies, screened bottom board and that all sits on a solid bottom board with aprrx 15" legs. My question is should I get rid of the solid bottom board, a lot of bees hang out in between the board and the screen making it hard to put sticky paper in to do a mite count and it also causes a HUGE problem if I do a sugar shake on them as it attracts every yellow jacket in the county to the sugar and then robbing and fighting. Not to mention that when the mites fall off a bunch of bees are back down there for the sugar and I am sure bringing the mites back in.
What should I do? It usualy gets cold here in the winter.
Turn the solid bottom to the rear so bees can not get in, unless they are walking around the hive. You can also run tape over the opening. I have done that.
No need for two bottom boards. As you've noticed, a solid bottom board under a screened bottom board sort of defeats the purpose of having a screened bottom board.
I have screened bottom boards and leave them open all winter. Mine have a slide-in board so that I could close them in the winter if I wanted to.
Exactly Indy, it seems to defeat the purpose of the screen but I am worried about the winter with just an open screen bottom.
what do other michigan beeks do?