I have preferred the bottom board. I can always block off the access if need be. However, I watched Stewart’s video on setting up a beetle trap and if it wasn’t for having the bottom board, I would have been spraying chemicals into the hive. I didn’t mark off the board to determine where the biggest issue was, but the cleaning of the frames gave me a grid pattern none the less. The beetles get stuck and daily to every other day checking allowed me to focus my observations on where the beetles were when I went into the hive. I had no mites on the board, but you could also observe for those critters as well.
Once again, another opinion.
And as Michael had pointed out, he ‘observed’ what his bees do and what they prefer. I had owned my own business of selling garden plants for a couple of years between retirement and my current job and I would have a lot of people ask me about tomato plants and how to raise them. I usually told the people that there were two basic ways to raise them. For the home gardener, stake them up if you wanted, but the second way would be to ‘observe’ what the farmer would do. Just let them lie on the ground, in the dirt and mud and harvest. This still makes some fine ketchup or salsa. If you want pretty looking tomatoes, stake them up or buy them from a green house. Observation of your bees is important and you need to choose what will be best for your conditions and your girls.
