painting a hive

[BeeCatcher]

need advice on painting a BeeMax polystyrene hive. i set it up last year. it has one brood chamber and 4 suppers on it. but i didnot know to paint the dard thing. now i see it is starting to show signs of wear pretty bad on the top cover and the bottom board. my problem is it is full of bees. can i paint it without hurting the bees or what should i do.

[Michael Bush]

I don't know much about polystyrene.

But I've painted hives with bees in them before. If you want to do it in the daytime, pick a hot sunny day and don't put the paint on heavy or the bees will get stuck in the paint, but if you put it on in really light coats they won't be bothererd by it and it will dry almost instantly.

Also, depending on what kind of paint and what kind of dew you get, and whether the bees are clustering on the outside of the hive, you might be able to close the entrance up at dark and and use some lights to see to paint it. Assuming there is no dew expected that night.


[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited February 28, 2003).]

[BeeCatcher]

thanks for the reply michael, i'll try that about wen. supposed to be close to 70° then.

[clintonbemrose]

I would try the paint I was going to use in a msall spot to make sure It doesn't damage/melt the Strine plastic before I painted the entire hive and damaged the investment completly
Clint

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Clinton Bemrose
just South of Lansing Michigan

[Jorge]

I imagine that most beekeepers keep a few empty boxes around just in case a swarm shows up or you need to add extra suppers during strong flows. What I would do is to take all the frames and put them in the same order) into new (already painted) boxes and them place them back where the old one was, and paint the boxes anyway you wish. Much easier to paint this way and it should take about 5-10 minutes to do the exchange.

Does anybody see anything wrong with this?
jorge

[Michael Bush]

I don't see anything "wrong" with it, except it's more work to move all of those boxes and juggle all of the frames and disrupt the bees. It really shouldn't hurt anything per se. If you feel more comfortable doing things that way, then that's how you should do it.

[BeeTexas]

BeeCatcher,

How does the BeeMax compare to regular wooden boxes. Could you tell a differance in productivity, health, or temperment as compared to colonies in wooden hives? I know Summer's get a little warm around Dallas and I think the BeeMax is supposed to stay cooler.

Thanks,
Dave

[BeeCatcher]

i think that the beemax hive is the strongest one that i have. but i think that i like the wooden hives best even tho the beemax hive is the strongest one i have and i started all my hives last year at the same time and each with a 3lb.of bees with new queen. on the painting, when i got it last year the adds didn't say anything about painting them, but now in the adds that i see in the magazines they say to paint them.so i think i might wait till it gets a little warmer and go out one night and try painting it. thanks for all the advice. oh by the way all my hives have the sbb on them. the beemax came with one.

[denise_ky]

Beecatcher,
You mentioned a term I haven't heard in a long while. 70 degrees! If I recall that is a term used to denote warm weather.
March 2nd and here it is still 39!
Denise

[wjw777]

Denise 0 degrees here in ohio tonite. The bees here are taking a beating this winter.
Walt