John Warshaw inquired:
 
>Has anyone tried a sheet of high-pressure plastic laminate as a varroa
>floor?  (Common brands in  the US are Formica and Wilsonart.  It is used
>over a substrate for kitchen and bath countertops.)  This stuff is about a
>tenth to a sixteenth of an inch thick, and could be slipped in from the
>front without modifying the bottom board.  Fancier rigs, with drawers
>opening to the rear or screen covers, could be made easily.  The sheets
>could be sprayed with cooking oil to make them sticky, and could be reused
>just about forever.
>
>I haven't tried this, but it seems like plastic laminate would be cheap,
>easy to use by inexperienced people, and require no modification to the hive
>unless additional features were desired.  Any thoughts?
 
   Yes.  Material in the Formica brand, when not laminated to something, is
actually very brittle; one can snap a piece off a corner with ease.  I
don't see how it would hold up well in the field.
 
                                                        Adrian
 
Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93103
 
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*     "Nature only answers rightly when she is rightly questioned."
 
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*                                                      Goethe
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