Preprimed 1x12 pine, should I plane one side?

[Wayne Smith]

Hi,
I'm new to beekeeping (and this forum) and could use some advice on building my first fifty boxes. I got a good deal on 1x12 pine but it is preprimed on all 4 sides. Is bare wood on the inside of the hive simply a labor saving measure or are there good reasons to plane primer off the inside?
Appreciate the help,
Wayne Smith

[stangardener]

i would not bother removing the primer but wait and get a few more opinions. the bees seal the inside of the hive themselves. i applaud your starting out with fifty boxes. how many hives are you starting this year? do you have a source for bees? i'm going into my third year with twenty six and more on order. is the good deal on lumber an on going thing that others could get in on? i go through dixon on my way to sonoma weekly. this forum is an excellant resource. good luck and enjoy the bees.

[George Fergusson]

Hard to pass up a good deal on 1x12 pine [img]smile.gif[/img] My concern would be the potential toxicity of the primer, either harming the bees or tainting the wax and honey. I'd either plane it off one side or take a disc sander to it. The insides of hives are supposed to be untreated, it's not just a labor-saving suggestion. That said, I've got a couple of used hive bodies that were painted on the inside and the bees used them apparently without complaint. I've since retired them.

The bees will wax and propolize the inside of the hive, but they probably won't like the primer which is probably nasty oil-based stuff that comes off on your fingers. Who knows, they they might be inclined to abscond if they don't like the primer.

[longarm]

Also, depending on the age of the paint, it might be lead based. There still is a bit of that floating around.. I would plane it.

[wade]

If it were me and I had access to a planer I'd do it, its not much extra work. If I didn't have access I'd paint over it, with latex paint. I've thought about doing that anyway, with some cedar I have.

[Fusion_power]

Most primers are harmless to bees, especially so for latex based primers. I have painted the interior of hives in the past just to see how they last in use. Surprisingly enough, they are a bit more durable than unpainted. But the real gain does not come from painting the interior, rather, it comes from painting the edges where the bodies stack on top of each other.

Fusion

[Michael Bush]

While I would not purposely paint the inside of a super, I would just leave it. But then I'm a lazy beekeeper.

[Wayne Smith]

Thanks all for the advice, I make it a 3/3 tie. I think I'll plane most since it is fairly easy and is the safe route. Maybe leave a few painted to see what happens.

Stangadener: I'll let you know if I can get more 1x12 than I can use. I'm going for 50 hives this spring and will be getting the bees from John Foster in Esparto and maybe Bee Genetics in Vacaville.

Michael: I have a lazy streak in me also but I prefer to call it efficiency (especially in front of my wife).

Wayne Smith

[Michael Bush]

My grandpa used to say any good invention was invented by a lazy man. All of civilizations labor saving devices were invented by lazy men. I don't consider it a bad thing.

[honeyman46408]

Well I have some deeps that I painted the inside 7 years ago and the rest have no paint and I cant tell the differance in how the bees use them.

The reason I painted them;
I was at a meeting the Dr Bill Wilson (retired from bee lab?) spoke at and he advised us to paint the inside to fill all the cracks the SHB may hide in, he did advise latex paint only.

[mwjohnson]

Hey Wayne,
Sounds good...you can't have too many hives...well,somebody said that one hive is too many and 100 wasn't enough! [img]smile.gif[/img]

One thing to check,SOME(not all) of that preprimed stuff is garbage...made up out of short finger jointed pieces.The say that it's "clear" pine.

I was getting kiln dried rough 1x12(#3 pine)for $.27 bd/ft....no more,now they're making it into a finger jointed stuff,they call it progress,it really should be called something like "short sighted forest management" lumber.

Good Luck

[hrogers]

Howdy Wayne --

It has not been mentioned, but my experience is that any paint is rough on planer blades. Oil base is much worse than latex.

Doc

[Wee3Bees Apiary]

I have some hive deeps made from old, recycled pine boards (used to be shelving) which were primed and painted on all sufaces. I cut them into hives bodies, assembled them and put the bees in them this past Spring.

The bees don't seem to care and the price was right! This was just in the brood chamber (the queens obviously don't care either; these deeps are on at least five different hives). They built up just fine and produced a lot of honey!

[tecumseh]

mr bush adds:
My grandpa used to say any good invention was invented by a lazy man. All of civilizations labor saving devices were invented by lazy men. I don't consider it a bad thing.

tecumseh replies:
in an industrial setting we use to believe that when you wanted to tweak a process to get the very most out of the very least... it was always best to get the laziest fellow on the plant floor to run the thing for a bit. Before long he would 'discover' the least effort means to accomplish the task at hand.

footnote:
as suggest by mr rogers do expect the planing to be extremely hard on the planer blades, also since you are taking a fractional inch off the boards all of the thickness will be a slightly odd dimension.... this will also mean that all the boxs dimension (either internal or external depending on a wood butcher's decision) will be that odd number X 2 irregular.

at this point life becomes... very confused. since each and every box bought or built from there on out will need to conform to this 'odd decision' made to utilize some inexpensive lumber. sounds like to me 'this cheap material' is becoming more expensive with each and every thought.

don't wish to be totally rude here wayne... but this does sound a bit penney wise and pound foolish to me.

[sierrabees]

<at this point life becomes... very confused. since each and every box bought or built from there on out will need to conform to this 'odd decision' made to utilize some inexpensive lumber. sounds like to me 'this cheap material' is becoming more expensive with each and every thought>

Some of my best yard art is the result of mis-matched equipment. The bees don't seem to care if stuff fits or not and if I can't make things match I just put together another swarm trap. Just paint all the off size equipment the same color and different from any standard size stuff so you can keep it all together and things should work fine. The only problem I can see is that it might be a tight squeeze to get the proper number of frames in but that can be corrected for by just adding 1/16th inch or so to the length of each side. If one box is a little bigger than another I put the smallest one on the bottom so the rain has less tendancy to seep in. As MB puts it, "Everything works if you let it."

[Wayne Smith]

Doc: you're right, very hard on the blades. I think in future I will leave the paint. The guy at the mill says it's a latex primer.

MWJohnson: This stuff is finger jointed 1x4. What would you expect the problem to be with using it? Seems to me, painted properly it should be fine.

Tecumseh: Are you seriously suggesting that 1/16" deviation on the exterior dimensions constitutes irregular equipment that I will be cursing for the rest of its life? Seems a no brainer that the "wood butcher" (that's me) would keep the interior dimensions correct and put the error on the outside. Where is the foolishness part. By the way, this is all a moot point, the wood is 3/4" after the planer. Don't worry you weren't totally rude.(smiley face goes here)

Thanks all,
Wayne

[tecumseh]

wayne smith sezs:
Don't worry you weren't totally rude.

tecumseh replies:
sorry wayne (and NO smiley face goes here).... usually when I mean to be rude there is little on no doubt in that regards. I did perhaps underestimate your woodworking skills. although even on this I am more than a wee bit confused since I suspect eventually you will discover the finger jointed wood will fall apart soon after your first significant rain spell. at least it does here.

within the bee industry standardization is (and always has been) a problem. recently I have noted that some 'newer' boxs used by some commercial beekeepers have been made from material that is a bit thicker that 3/4 inch (don't really know the manufacturer). now this would be no problem for me since I use migratory covers... but I can imagine that some hobby beekeeper might acquire these same boxes and try to run telescoping tops and be more that a bit troubled by why the top don't go on....

anyway... I do very much wish you the best of luck with your little project and merry christmas.

[Wayne Smith]

tecumseh: oh!, there's the foolish part. I did have reservations about the fingerjoint when I first heard about it but apparently put it out of my mind in the rush to build some boxes. Sometimes I seem to prefer to learn things the hard way. Back to the drawing board. My little project seems to be growing. Thanks for your help, you do have a way about you.
Wayne

and Merry Christmas to you.

[Troutsqueezer]

Dixon + 50 hives + almonds = $$$$

[ScadsOBees]

In theory..
If you can use the cheap fingerjointed boxes for a year or maybe two, those hives should have paid off enough for you to start investing in some sturdier boxes and start replacing the old when it starts failing. Or just replace a few a year. It might be cheaper to just do it right all up front, but if the money isn't available to do that, you can replace them as you buy them.

My time is cheap when I'm not at work and don't mind doing that sort of thing if I can save a buck or two and enjoy myself making them(I'd be reading, napping, or watching TV). I'd feel lots different it I were running a business and not just a hobby.

-rick