# Painting hives



## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

Okay. So I got my unassembled bee hives assembled (glue and wood screws) and I've gotten two coats of primer on. 

Tonight I got a coat of white paint on - doesn't look like I'll need a second coat. Now, do you paint the part where the bee hives stack up onto each other (to help preserve the wood) or is it not worth doing because when you pry the hives apart, your hive tool is going to scratch the paint up anyway?

And the bottom board, I know you aren't supposed to paint the bottom board, (well, the part the hive sits on - you of course paint the sides), but do you paint the entrance where the bees land - or not? I did thinking the white will maybe keep them a little bit cooler during the summer (and protect the wood) or aren't you supposed to?

I haven't really seen any "rules" for or against.

What do YOU do?


----------



## no1cowboy (May 2, 2004)

I just stack up the boxes and paint all the sides and dont worry about anything else, 
I paint the portion of bottem board the bees land on.


----------



## upnorthlady (Oct 16, 2009)

We just paint the outsides. We do not paint where any of the boxes will touch when stacked. If you are from the south, paint them white. Up north here we can use other colors like pale pastels, beige, yellow, gold, etc. Black and red are supposed to be the two colors that bees hate! We go to the local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and buy gallons of outdoor paint there really cheap - like $3 a gallon. We don't care what color. Most of the paint is light colors anyway.


----------



## beespinner (Jun 25, 2011)

We are Central Florida beekeepers with a few hundred hives. We paint our hives in any color we can get cheap, oops paint from home depot is wonderful, thats for outdoors. two coats and we paint the landing strip and the tops of the hives where they meet in a stack as well. The trick is that we do two heavy coats the weather here is brutal sometims so it helps the wood last longer.


----------



## Mavors (Mar 30, 2007)

I paint everything that it outside surface and the top edges of all our boxes. 

Mav


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

We use deck and fence stain, It's OPPS stuff also. Many times I stack the hive up and use a paint roller to do several coats on the front back and sides. Kare will once they are dry do the top and bottom edges and make sure the hand holds have a good coating too. We found out that by applying stain on the edges that the ants tend to leave them alone longer.
Normally once we pick up a dead out if the stain has faded a lot I'll recover them with stain before they are put back in use.

On the used stuff I buy which gets torched I'll sand the insides after the torching and Kare then stains the insides also.
Bees don't seem to mind at all if fact I am sure I get less burr comb on the hive body walls.

 Al


----------

