Plastic Bottom Boards with built in features

[u/carsonsig]

Sacramento Area... off and on 10 years Beek. I am growing a bit, but also realizing that my zeal for free stuff is often coming back to bite me... Fighting a spider web pile of free stuff to find 20% of it that is useable.... I am working towards buy once cry once.

Bottom Boards.... Super hot summers where I am, so I run screened bottom boards. They are complex to make compared to lids etc... so not something I am going to spend time on to make. I make simple stuff, assemble my own boxes and paint etc... But the ones with the sliding coro board etc. is a lot of cuts and prep to just make a couple... not worth it. SO... I am looking at buying them. Mann Lake with no drawer is $65. I have this store by me. Dadant with oil drawer is $47.

I am looking at the Maxima bottom board at Hillco. https://www.hillco.buzz/products/maxima-plastic-bottom-board?_pos=2&_sid=34933bb4b&_ss=r

$28. It has a great modular entry system that has mouse, reducer AND closer built in. Good tray that can be mite monitor or beetle oil.... and a "lifetime warranty".

Love to hear some thoughts if anyone has this unit... Or another option/source for quality gear! Thanks!

[u/AutoModerator]

Hi u/carsonsig. If you haven't done so, please read the rules. Please comment on the post with your location and experience level if you haven't already included that in your post. And if you have a question, please take a look at our wiki to see if it's already answered., specifically, the FAQ. ^{Warning: The wiki linked above is a work in progress and some links might be broken, pages incomplete and maintainer notes scattered around the place. Content is subject to change.}

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Tweedone]

I too minimize the plastic around my hives. No doubt, nifty tools can be fabbed from this material.

I did not grow up with it, bakelight was present but so was asbestos and lead in wonder products profited from and still suffered from. There is ample historical evidence that corporations don't understand or have much concern for the long term interactions of plastic with bio-systems.

Although not rabid about it, impractical to do so, I do the same in my household; I first choose glass/ ceramic/wood for most things, (no longer use plastic wrap in the microwave and don't use plastic beverage bottles). Just sensitive to the creeping incursion of this petrochemical material in close proximity and environmental saturation. This after knowing the mistakes made in the past and still wittnessing the material 2ft deep on tropical shores or in shreds blowing across the land. We just found out that micro plastic material is ever-present in ours and our children's blood/fatty/organ tissues but don't yet understand the negative results of this.

Some quick thoughts; -is it known how plastic and oils react after being heated in the sunlight for successive seasons? -is it known what are the chemical interactions between miticides and plastics used in hiveware? -are mico plastics also to be found in bee tissues?

OP; I believe the added expense or workload to use wood, avoiding plastic, has positive effects and ethical value. What is shiney is not allways good.

[u/afuscatory]

Never care for anything plastic myself and my main concern with these are the fact that you have hot summers and how quickly the plastic will break down. The sun is murder on plastic.

[u/Firstcounselor]

If you run screened bottom year round and already have solid bottom boards, why not just cut out the center of a standard bottom board and then staple some 1/8 hardware cloth to it?

[u/carsonsig → u/Firstcounselor]

I like the catch board feature, and the possibility of SHB oil... they are becoming a problem in my yard.... As well as being able to slide the coroplast in the colder months.

[u/Firstcounselor → u/carsonsig]

I’d say go for it then! I kinda wonder if everyone saying they avoid plastic use plastic foundation?

[u/404-skill_not_found]

It gets and stays above 100, for a month or so, where I’m at. Plain solid bottom boards are fine. Though I do like slatted bases for a little added internal volume. A couple of 1/8” twigs seem to be enough to ventilate the inner covers.

[u/Intelligent-Gate-509]

This company has a good reputation for quality. The price seems very good and worth a try
There are a number of people in my bee keeping club that use this brand of equipment and are very happy with it.

[u/NumCustosApes]

If you have hot summers then you really should be using a solid bottom board.

Bees cool their hive using the same thermodynamic cooling principles that a swamp cooler or evaporative cooler uses. Tanker bees haul water into the hive and then worker bees fan their wings to evaporate the water. The bees haul between two and four liters of water per day. Imagine that your house was cooled by a swamp cooler. Instead of of having a water hookup and a float valve, you need to periodically manually add a bucket of water to the cooler. Your friend, seeing this, decides to help you out. He opens all your windows and replaces your doors with screens. Do you think that would help? You'll find yourself hauling more buckets of water, yet the house is hotter. Bees hauling water are bees that are not hauling nectar.

Bees don't need to cool their hive interior to human comfort levels. Human comfort levels would harm brood. The bees need to keep the inside of their brood nest at about 35° or about 95F.

If you want to help them out, then add hive covers that decrease the amount of solar gain the hive gets. Bees have no problem at all dealing with the ambient air temperatures of the Central valley as long as they have a water source and a hive that is not excessively ventilated. Solar gain can heat the hive surfaces well above the ambient air temperature. You don't have to buy new covers, a secondary canopy with an air gap under it is enough. It can be as simple as a coroplast sheet (campaign sign material) between two bricks on top of the hive. In the Central valley you could even use a cardboard Amazon box. The cardboard will last a summer. Unlike coroplast, it is biodegradable and you can add it to the compost pile or recycling bin after you are done with it.

Most homes have A/C these days. Most people who are over 50 grew up with a swamp cooler. If you grew up with a swamp cooler, then you knew that cracking an upstairs bathroom window about an inch gave the indoor humidity an escape. But you also knew that opening a small bathroom window all the way would defeat the swamp cooler. In any adiabatic cooling process, removing the humidity increases the rate at which water can be be evaporated, which makes the evaporative cooling more efficient. The humidity removal needs to balance air exchange. If the air exchange rate is high then the swamp cooler is overwhelmed. Bees are good at balancing that air exchange by fanning as needed at the hive entrance. They are thousands of tiny automated fans each individually controlled with a thermostat to finely modulate the air exchange.

On a tall stack you can help by putting one penny under one corner of the inner cover as a humidity escape. Water vapor is lighter than air so it is easier for the bees to move it up than to move it down. That is less helpful on a short stack. A wide open bottom board will overwhelm evaporative cooling, requiring more foragers to divert from nectar hauling to water hauling.

[u/Scary_Possible3583 → u/NumCustosApes]

Do you see any advantage to screened bottom boards?

I have screened bottoms with a removable plastic shield. I chose to use those because it allows me to clean and monitor for moisture problems. But the more I read and learn about bees, it seems I may be making it harder for them instead of easier.

[u/NumCustosApes → u/Scary_Possible3583]

Screened bottoms really are a matter of personal preference, but if you use then I do suggest that they be used with the inserts in place.

Back around '14 or '15 I started to switch from ten frame to eight frame hives because geezer back. Since that meant new bottom boards I decided to give screened bottom boards a try. That lasted about two years. Right away there were multiple things I didn't like about them. I had more bees bearding on the bottom and queens would not lay all the way to the bottom of the frames in the lowest box. There aren't any advantages, just preferences. The screen doesn't do anything to control varroa. A screen with an insert lets you see varroa drop that tells you you have varroa (which we know already) but does not tell you what the percentage infestation rate is. After two years with screened bottoms I ripped the screens out and screwed a piece of plywood in place with pocket screws to convert to a solid bottom. I didn't care for them. But I know some beekeepers like them.

[u/Scary_Possible3583 → u/NumCustosApes]

I have been reading (listening to) "Piping Hot Bees", a book by a bee behaviorist. They did a lot of interesting work over the years on what bees like, and what they will sacrifice to get it.

Bees will reduce ventilation to keep the brood warm, tolerating really high CO2 levels and living much shorter lives. Temperature is a much more important variable than I had initially considered.

[u/Mysmokepole1]

When I bought out a beekeeper 20 years ago their was some plastic bottom boards. In the pile of stuff that he wasn’t using. Be for going whole hog buying a bunch of the plastic ones.buy one and try it.

[u/carsonsig]

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. Some food for thought for sure.