Friday, July 11, 2008

Painting Beehives

WBC hivesI spent most of yesterday cleaning up a WBC beehive. I scraped any wax or other crud off it, expelled a few spiders, and sterilised all the parts with a blowlamp (that's my favourite). Then I sanded and painted all the exterior bits with ordinary white gloss paint (after filling with wood-filler where necessary). I got some frames with foundation wax I had already assembled. Then I was ready to go.

But today it is cold, miserable and raining. Not at all the right kind of weather for beekeeping tasks. If I opened a hive today the brood (the maggoty baby bees) would get cold and die. Also the bees would be cross and would try to take it out on me. The hive parts are all damp and that's really bad for bees. So nothing doing until the weather brightens up.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your hives look lovely. I have a plain National hive which I got on Monday and then I was given a nucleus of bees from the local beekeeping association on the Tuesday. I am really enjoying beekeeping so far. :)

I like the idea of painting the hives, however is there any 'special' sort of paint that I need to use?

Thanks,

Martin

(www.martinblyth.vox.com)

Melanie Rimmer said...

Nope, just ordinary exterior gloss paint.

Yellow said...

Mel, could you paint them yellow or red, or stripes? Is there any reson why they're white? Don't get me wrong, they look very smart all white, I was just wondering.

Melanie Rimmer said...

Not at all, Yellow, it's just traditional. Some people paint their hives dark green or brown to camouflage them against vandals, and some paint them yellow with "Warning - high voltage" stickers for similar reasons. The bees aren't fussy.

Yellow said...

Cool. I like the 'High Voltage' idea. I'm starting to get mad ideas for my stay at yours soon.

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