A straw-bale shelter round the winter apiary — real wind protection, or just a mouse hotel?

Perthshire, seven years, eleven hives. My apiary sits on a slope that funnels everything the Atlantic sends, and after the gale earlier this month I'm finally doing something about shelter rather than just strapping harder. The cheap option in front of me is straw. A neighbour has big square bales at £4 each and I could build a two-bale-high wall along the west and south-west sides, two metres out from the hives, and take it down in spring. The alternative is proper windbreak netting on posts, which costs more, needs digging, and lasts years. My hesitations about straw are all about what lives in it. A dry straw wall two metres from eleven hives in November sounds like accommodation for every mouse and vole on the farm, and I'd be inviting them to move next door to the entrances. So — has anyone actually run a straw-bale windbreak through a winter? Did the rodents become a problem, and did the wind reduction justify it? And for those using netting, how far from the hives and how high, and does a solid barrier make turbulence worse than a permeable one?