Screened & Solid Bottom Boards

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I added a home made screened bottom board (SBB) to the hive on the left today. The hive on the right has a normal solid bottom board. I took the photo around 8:00pm (about five minutes ago) after a hot day.

Screened bottom board hive on the left. Regular bottom board on the right. (August 20th, 2011.)

It could be a coincidence, but if I were to judge only from the photo, I’d say the bees on the right live a hot and humid hive and the bees on the left are chillin’. I wish I had the materials to build a SBB for the hive on the right.

See the Hive Humidity post for more info on all this ventilation business. I’ve seen in the past week how vital ventilation is to a healthy hive. I wish I’d hopped on that train from day one.

3 thoughts on “Screened & Solid Bottom Boards”

    • I agree. I wouldn’t use these screened bottom boards if I knew we had a cold spell of weather coming along. We might have a hurricane hitting us next week. I plan to block up the SBB if that’s the case. I know some people keep screened bottom boards on all year round, but I doubt they live in Newfoundland.

      I have a SBB on one hive at the moment only because I could feel the humidity pouring out of the hive entrance when I put my hand near it. That’s just not happening most other times of the year.

  2. We have a hurricane coming tomorrow. High winds, heavy rain. I decided to remove the ventilator rims from all my hives because I gotta feeling the rain will be coming in at 90° for the next 24 hours, and as much as I love my ventilator rims, I don’t want to risk soaking my bees. The two big hives have screened inner covers, so if water gets in through the ventilator rim holes, they have no way to keep the rain out of the brood nest.

    At any rate, I removed the ventilator rims and I think the bees are feeling it. Already they’re bearding outside the bottom entrances like the hive on the right in the above photo. It doesn’t take long for the humidity inside the hive to build up. I’m glad I’m only removing the ventilator rims for one day.

    Next time I think I’ll just remove the screened inner covers, and replace them with solid inner covers. Yeah, that probably would have been the smarter thing to do.

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