solid bottom board???

[rgy]

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.

[AllenF]

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. 

[indypartridge]

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.

[rgy]

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?