Ready to Order Screened Bottom Boards - Any Recomendations?

[Old Blue]

I am planning on ordering half a dozen.  I have never used them before.

Would anybody like to make a recommendation on style or supplier?  Having never used them before I don't know what features are available, needed or preferred.

I think I would like to be able to put a tray underneath for counting mites but I don't know - What do you think?

It also seem like a good idea to access the tray from behind the hive?  Yea / or Nay?

Should I cut holes in my Platforms to let the mites fall all the way to the ground?

Any schooling, preferences, likes, dislikes etc etc are much appreciated.

I am hoping they will make a noticeable difference in the mite loads my colonies carry and help them to last more than a few seasons.

Old Blue
Waiting for the inevitable taxes on mites, screened bottom boards etc etc etc.  In..........
Kali-bone-ya

[Dimmsdale]

You'll find mixed options on screened bottom boards.  I like the one's from Brushy Mountain.  They are solid, made of cypress and come with a board to slide in from the rear to count mites.  Been using them for about 5 years and they have held up well.  Most I have painted, but even the couple that I didn't are still in great shape.

[iddee]

I am seeing more and more beeks going back to solid bottom boards, myself included. I think I still have 1 screened bottom, which I hope to get rid of this year.

[Kathyp]

i keep some.  they are great for swarm catching or moving hives.  you can close the hive and not worry about ventilation.

i get mine from Mann Lake.  make sure that the boards you get come with the inserts for winter.  not all places sell those.  i like the metal inserts because they don't warp, but the wood inserts are fine too.  just paint them.  you can also make replacements if you are at all handy. 

[mdbee]

I had 30 0n and now replacing them with solids, if you use them and have the inserts make sure you keep them clean or take them out when it warms up, the wax moths will make a mess in no time.

[Wolfer]

I use the IPK beetle traps from green beehives. These are not for ventilation. They do catch mites and beetles in the oil tray.

[tandemrx]

I have been using Country Rubes screened bottom boards.  In concept I like them and they are well built.

That being said, I am moving back to solids after about 6-8 years of mostly screened.

I mainly used them because my wife is crazy about bees overheating and likes the ventilation.  I am not convinced that anyone has shown that screens do that much for mite populations and I know I have been overrun by mites with or without screens.

I agree about keeping the solid slide in board clean.  Country Rubes has a nice board that slides under screen from behind, but there is substantial gap between board and screen, so when you keep it in, say during winter, it fills with detritus, mice, ants, etc. 

Awfully nice for doing mite drop counts, but there are other options for counting mites.

They do have a slide in slot just on top of the screen from the front, but I get tired of multiple manipulations and plus then I need a different sized entrance reducer.

I just think things are cleaner with a solid board and I can ventilate to keep my wife happy by other means.

It was an expensive endeavor to get all those country Rubes.  Again, they are well made and I recommend them in theory, but I will now move back to solids.

[Old Blue]

iddee
mdbee
tandemrx

May I ask why you are moving away from the screened bottom boards?

I was hoping to increase the lifespan of my colonies.  Is there no benefit to having them?

I am also probably going to have to start some kind of treatment for mites.  None of my colonies lives more than 2.5 years max.  I have lost every colony I have ever had (~15), none of them seems to be able to survive.

My bees fly year round.  I don't really have a good time to do treatments.  I am thinking of using queen excluders and at some point pulling the top box off and treating and replacing it back on after treatment.

I am resolved to try these changes to try to get longer colony lifespans and healthier bees overall.  Catching swarms every year to replace the dead colonies is getting old.  I also think I will have to keep a fair number of colonies just for the purpose of making splits to keep up with the replacements needed.

Any thoughts comments or advice are greatly appreciated.

Old Blue

[tandemrx]

Well, as I mentioned, I don't think it helps reduce mite populations, nor do I think it has made my colonies "healthier".  It does introduce an issue with cleanliness if you put in a temporary board below the screen.  If the bees can't get to an area, they can't keep it clean, it then serves as a nice reservoir for other pests (ants, spiders, mice, various maggots, earwigs, etc) and mold & mildew & moisture - and sometimes bees take up residence and get trapped there).

Really the big benefit is counting mite drops (this can still be done on solid boards, just not as easily, or you can do a sugar roll), and it does help when you want to contain your bees so they don't get baked when you totally close up a hive (when they are getting robbed, when you want to move them, when you want to contain them because farmer next door is spraying his fields).  But, I can get a screened top for that and lift the tele-cover a bit.

It just takes a lot of simplicity out of beekeeping to have more complex screened bottom hives and I am not sure the bees like it.

Admittedly, in San Diego you could keep the screens open all year - well some do that here as well, but I just can't do that when we have winters like this year where it was below zero for like a month in a row - so you wouldn't have issues with contained detritus - but I am not convinced your hives will be healthier .

In regards to lifespan . . . I am not sure that 2.5 years isn't reasonable, but I am not sure what we are talking about here - the life of a colony with a given queen?  Then 2.5 years is decent.  You might just consider requeening a bit more often, say at 2 year or 1.5 years.  Only hive that I have had that lasted 4 years without some type of queen manipulation is my observation hive (and it swarms 3 times a year at a minimum - because it is 3.5 frames in size and overcrowds quickly).

I think your idea of keeping a few more hives and making splits is the ticket (and catching swarms  :))

PS - my wife was walking around downtown San Diego today and there was a swarm of bees in some major shopping area trying to find a spot to land on.  She wasn't able to hang around to watch the spectacle (hard not to be fascinated by a swarm - even when you have seen dozens).

[Michael Bush]

>I was hoping to increase the lifespan of my colonies.

How do you think it will help?

> Is there no benefit to having them?

I like having some around, as Kathy said, for swarms, moving bees etc. so they don't overheat.  Since I only do top entrances mine have the entrance closed so one on the top and one on the bottom and a strap to hold it together can work well for bringing a swarm home.  The theoretical benefit is for Varroa, but I never saw any difference in Varroa with them.

As far as which ones, I have not examined all of what is available and compared prices for a decade or more, so I'm not sure what's out there.  Mine are from Brushy Mt.  They come with a tray.  They are cypress.  All nice things to have.  No point in one without a tray as the nicest thing to do with Varroa is that you can monitor the Varroa by looking at the tray.  Come winter I would want the tray in as well.

[mdbee]

I had solids back in the 80s late 90s and I lost my hives to the mites and I got out of bee keeping so when I came back into it 10 years ago I started using SBB thinking it would help with the mites, I lost a lot of bee's (50-60%) trying to go treatment free and all. It made me sick every spring, all I was doing was building up and losing half every winter, so I treated late summer and early fall and went into winter this year with 30 and only lost 3. SBB or solids will not make your bee's survive, kill the mite's and make sure they are strong and ready for winter and they will survive. Where I live the summers are not as hot as down south and the nights get cool, I use 3 med brood boxes and I think the Queen lays in the bottom box better with solids, my SBB let a lot of air in, even with the inserts and if you let them in you end up with a mess. (Just what works for me)

[KD4MOJ]

You'll find mixed options on screened bottom boards.  I like the one's from Brushy Mountain. 

+1 on Brushy ones.... that's what I have been using.

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[iddee]

The screen ones cost more.
I didn't see a difference in mites.
The queen lays lower on the bottom frames with a solid.
The final straw was when I had hives setting across two crossties. I removed the tele. lid, removed the inner lid, and had fescue grass growing through the screen, two deep hive bodies, and curling around under the inner lid.

[Intheswamp]

Look at the way the rear (opposite end from the porch) is built.  If the bottomboard is built where only the two side boards rest on the hivestand then it's fairly easy to modify and add an oil tray to it.  If there is wood on the rear of the sbb that is flush with the side rails on the bottom then it makes it a bit more of a problem to modify.  I had been using some from Rossman and ordered a couple of more last year...but when the new ones got here they had a piece of trim filling in that gap...I called Ann Rossman and they made me up some in the old style with side runners only.

Ed

[Intheswamp]

Oh yeah, if a mite falls through the screen and the screen is much of any distance from your "platform" it is unlikely the mite will get back where the bees are...they're not very mobile in a "walking/climbing way". 

Btw, for that oil tray mod here is an older thread I did on one....scroll down a few posts and you can see a shot of the rear of a hive that I've elevated on more runners.   This will explain what I was talking about in regards to the sbb being on side runners.  The wooden runners that I glued to the tray didn't work out well as they eventually popped loose from the tray.  Later in the thread you can see where I did another mod that did away with the strips of wood glued to the tray.  I'm now in the process of refining this one a bit.  Here's the thread link:  http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,38714.0.html   Interestingly, the hive with the "bling" was the only hive that produced for me last year out of 3 or 4 (?) colonies....and it made close to 110 pounds of honey! :)

Ed