Well, I went ahead and ordered a slatted rack which arrived yesterday and I will put on today when I do a powdered sugar dusting to fight a varroa infestion. I am pretty sure I have already lost one, possibly two swarms from this hive in the past couple of weeks, but the bees are still bearding pretty bad.
I just had this one hive most of the summer until I hived a small swarm last week. I always planned to go to two hives next spring but now I think I will do 3 or 4. (I know, I know, that is how the addiction starts :-D) It is great to be able to try different things with different hives and see what works and what doesn't seem to. Hopefully I will be able to compare hives side by side, one with slatted rack and one without, and see if I can tell much of a difference.