I am slightly confused the pa***s poly national comes with a poly crownboard which has no holes in it, so when you want to take a super off is there anyway you can let all the bees get out prior to lifting it off or again am I being daft...
Crownboard should have no holes.
Feeder boards and clearer boards need one or more holes.
You are losing out if you try and cover all three jobs with the same board.
Pains hive packages come with a flexy plastic sheet that, (with rails fitted to the box), rests on the topbars. And gets prop'ed to it. Which makes it awkward to replace without a full clean-down on every inspection. Just like the nasty metal (or plastic) sheet queen excluders. Pains give you a plastic sheet qx as well.
The good news is that you can use coverboards, feeder boards and clearer boards (and qx's too) that were made for wooden hives.
Its pretty easy to make a Rhombus clearer board - it must be, I've done it!
And if you think about it, making it so that with the plastic rhombus removed it becomes a feeder board, you could save yourself storing another spare part.
Then you can buy a polycarb crownboard (no holes) from T's (for example).
And you can attach an Apiguard eke (home made) to one side. And cut a square of building insulation board (Kingspan, Celotex, whatever) to fit neatly inside the eke, to give you a very fine set hive parts.
Unless you really want to build a tricky little frame, its best just to buy a framed, rigid-wire qx ...
Don't throw out the bits Pains supply, you'll find other uses for them!
Top/bottom beespace is a traditional squabble.
For National-format hives, bottom beespace is standard.
If you are determined to use top beespace by leaving out the rails, you'll get your frame lugs prop'd to the ledges. Which isn't at all helpful. And you would want plain flat qx and coverboard.
Use the rails, and use framed qx and coverboard to give beespace beneath. Keep It Simple S....
