Mouse guards and reduced entrances going on this week — homemade hardware-cloth versions, with photos

Devon, four hives. Nights are dipping under 10°C so this week is entrance week: reducers in, mouse guards on. Mice move into hives once clusters form and stop patrolling the floor — a mouse in February means chewed comb, a stinking nest in the corner, and stressed bees. I make my own guards: strips of 6 mm (1/4") galvanised hardware cloth, cut 5 cm tall, folded into an L and pinned over the reduced entrance. Workers walk through 6 mm mesh fine; mice can't. Drones can't pass either, but by the time guards go on the colonies are evicting drones anyway. Total cost about 40p per hive versus £4 each for the punched-metal commercial ones (which are also fine — the 9 mm round holes work well and shed less pollen from returning foragers, to be fair). Photos of the fold pattern attached. One warning from bitter experience: make sure the mouse isn't already IN there before you seal the door.