Paradise® screened bottom poly

01 · NO TRAY, AND WHY

What goes out does not come back in

It is the question this page gets most, so it comes first: this model has no diagnostic drawer and none can be added. The mesh is open to the ground, so dislodged mites and floor debris leave the hive instead of piling up. If you need to count the drop, the way to do it is to lay a sheet smeared with thick vaseline on the stand, underneath the floor; the floor itself does not collect it.

02 · LOWER AND LIGHTER

Built to travel

It is lower than the previous model and weighs far less, and that turns into two concrete things: it fits on a pallet — which is what counts when you migrate — and it takes up less height in the lorry, so more hives fit per trip. It can also go on a stand or trestles, which gains you ventilation underneath and saves your back at every inspection.

03 · ALSO AS A DIVIDER

Stacked between two boxes

It seats on other Paradise hives, and there it stops being a floor: set between two boxes it works as a divider board, which is what lets you run two colonies in the same column — one above, one below — or separate two brood chambers to work with two queens. One component doing both jobs is one of the things that make a modular system comfortable.

04 · THE PAINT

Outside only, and not just any

Polystyrene neither rots nor takes up damp, but the sun does attack it: the coat of paint is not cosmetic, it is what makes the floor last decades. Use water-based exterior paint or polyurethane, preferably with UV protection. What you must not use is enamel or anything with solvent, which attack the material, and paint the outside only.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The entrance is not included. And a handling detail worth knowing beforehand: to change it you have to lift the box, because it goes in from below. This is BeeBox — the external footprint does not match a wooden hive.