Iām twisting Stanās arm to make me two with solid floors. Iām thinking of adding insulation with a
@Swarm slant
But how are you going have the fun of counting mites if you've got a solid floor?
I made my UFEs before JBM produced his excellent drawings. They were based on Graham White's design
here.
At the time, there was a lot of talk about mites crawling from the monitoring board back up into the brood box so my monitoring board is supported on four thin nails driven horizontally into the side members with a 5mm undersized board, leaving a small gap all around the board. To be honest, I'm not sure that mites would ever make that journey, but there you are!
I've come to the conclusion that ventilation in beehives is much over-rated if the hive is properly insulated so I tend to leave by monitoring boards in place over winter. This has the advantage that I can tell by the debris on the board what is happening in the hive and the wind that eddies under the hive does not suck warm air out of the brood box - it has the effect of being like a solid floor but it's removable.
If I were to make some more, I might be tempted to goes for using 6 x 1 timber, rather than 4 x 1, to give a bigger journey for the mites and even less chance of warm air being sucked out of the brood box by wind under the hive.
CVB