Do we need a mouse guard / comb for the winter with a Flow Hive 2 or is the height of the entrance small enough to stop mice?
Either way, I wanted a different entrance reducer, because the centered entrance on the original is not ideal when you start a new colony from a split.
In that case you want the entrance to one side, so you can position the frames with bees at the entrance and the nectar storage away from it. This makes it easier for the bees to protect it.
So I did a little project in FreeCAD and paid a local company to laser cut me a new entrance from 1.5 mm stainless steel. It looks like this:
Yes you do. Mice can climb those legs very easily. If you make a mouse guard, make sure that the dimensions of the entrance(s) is no more than 9mm. Bigger than that, and a mouse skull can easily get through.
Hm. I had looked at different combs and most seem to be around 9.5mm ish - from down 7.5 mm up to12 mm. And I didn’t want to make them too small to not mess with pollen baskets for example.
But I guess, I could make them a little smaller. (< 9mm in both directions or either?)
Well, a mouse’s skull is approximately circular in cross-section, so I would say a 9mm circle is optimal. Young mice can obviously have smaller skulls, but by the time they are nesting for winter, most mice should be almost adult-sized.
Yes, I have worked with mice in the past, and I had good reason to need to know the skull dimensions for the work I was doing.
I have some a bit like these that I bought years ago, and I love them. In fact they stay on the hive all year. The holes are 9mm though, I don’t know what hole size is used in the Amazon link here:
I have never seen loose/dislodged pollen granules with these mouse guards
