Hello All:
I recently purchased my first 2 hives. I most likely will receive my bees with in the next week. The bottom boards I have are not screened and my foundations are plastic. I would like to convert my bb's to screened, but am unable to find any instructions online. Are there any suggestions for converting? or should I not attmept this and just purchase new boards?
Should I stay with the plastic foundation and try this, or should I remove them and covert to was foundation. If so, which is the easiest way to do this?
I really appreciate any advice/direction anyone might be able to give.
Thank you,
Derrick
I have taken approximately half my bottom boards and just cut out a section approximately 10 inches wide and 12 inches long. Then staple hardware cloth over the hole. Then stapled some small square stock with a saw kerf in it to accept a slide in plastic sheet so I could shut them down. The ventilation helped with bearding. I also left some open over winter to see how they did. The colonys with the open bottoms are well behind the colonys with solid bottoms this spring, so I will probably not do that again. I haven't noticed any benefit as far as mites being controlled by the open bottoms. And the ventilation issue I think can be as well addressed by shifting the supers 3/8's of an inch and propping the tops up. This has the added benefit of adding entrances above the brood nest and relieves to a small extent some crowding and traffic in that area. If I was making comb or chunk honey, I would certainly utilize upper entrances to reduce some travel stains on the new wax.
I wouldn't worry about changing them over. New ones are easy to build....see http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209573
Here are some plans;
http://www.beesource.com/plans/ipmbottom.htm
If you want to convert to top entrance just turn the solid bottom boards over and put them on top of the instead of the bottom. Then put a screen bottom board on the bottom. The air flow will cure many problems including bearding.
Or turn the solid ones into feeders:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmisc.htm