Plastic bottom board ventilated NICOT® for Dadant Blatt and Langstroth hives

01 · WHICH HIVES IT FITS

Dadant Blatt, Dadant US and 10-frame Langstroth

This is a floor, not a box: frame size does not come into it, so it works just the same with 47 cm Blatt or 48 cm US frames. It fits Dadant Blatt, Dadant US and 10-frame Langstroth, in plastic and in wood. With a wooden box there is one thing several beekeepers report: depending on your timber thickness, the box may overhang by a centimetre or a centimetre and a half at the back. It still closes, and that overhang acts as a drip edge — it is not a fitting fault, but if you expected it flush, better to know beforehand.

02 · WHAT THE MESH IS FOR

The varroa that drops does not climb back

The open mesh lets dislodged varroa — from grooming or after a treatment — fall through the floor and out of the bees' reach, instead of latching on again. The same mesh keeps the brood chamber dry in winter and sheds heat in summer, which is what you value in the south or in a damp apiary. If you want to close the ventilation or run a drop count, you need the tray — bought separately.

03 · PLASTIC INSTEAD OF WOOD

The floor is the part that rots first

A wooden floor is where a hive starts to go: it collects damp, takes every cleaning product and sits through the treatment cycles. This one is recyclable food-grade plastic: it does not rot, it takes a pressure wash and it needs no paint. In exchange it is moulded plastic — the fixing lugs are the delicate part and one can arrive broken from transport; check them on arrival, though for normal use they are not essential.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is sold as the floor only. Separate items are the monitoring tray (to close the ventilation in winter or count drop), the entrance block and the fixing hooks to strap down a wooden box. And a point that comes up often: this base is not a pollen trap, even though its mesh spacing matches that of the traps.