Should I Paint, Wax, or Stain My Beehives? & WHY DID MY BEES DIE?! Beekeeping 101  

I need to look into building one too bc wax dipping is definitely the way to go! Great info thank you 🙏🏼 ☺️

My Vevor waxed hives are not holding up as I expected. Cheep hives but need a better coat of cover

Got two cedar beehives as Christmas gifts. I’m planning to use Eco Wood on one of them and use an organic paint on the other.

I find it to work really well. I dip each side in a big tray of it and let it soak for minute or so. I’ll never go back to painting my hive boxes.

You are SO SWEET! Thank you right back atcha! ♥️♥️♥️

I wouldn’t worry about it spraying it with bleach. The bees will actually clean up the mold theirselves! That’s the cool thing about them, they don’t have a problem cleaning up anything to make it their home. 🙂

That’s great news!! I am going to texture the inside of the brood boxes like your video suggested

Interesting, I will need to look into this bc wax dipping is definitely the way to go!

I would definitely use a pair of pans, the larger one with some water in it and the smaller one hanging in the hot water in the larger pan and containing the wax. That separates the heat from the wax, limits the temperature of the wax to that of boiling water, and prevents any wax which spills over the edge of the inner pan from reaching the flame. Hot wax is a serious fire risk, so keep a fire blanket or extinguisher on hand and make sure you can shut off the gas to the burner remotely because if the pan goes up in flames you do NOT want to approach it to turn off the gas! Dipping is ideal, but you can apply the wax with a brush or roller, although that will not penetrate the wood as deeply as if it were immersed, because as the wood cools, it draws the wax into the grain. You could put each body into a hot oven for the time it takes to treat its predecessor, and in theory, that should result in results as good as dipping. You will need gloves or tongs to handle the hot wood, but I doubt if many beekeepers are going to have any problem finding those. For my second choice, I would use a good marine varnish, ideally a natural-based one. You could use a stain under that if you like, and the resulting finish will probably survive far longer than most beekeepers. I have that type of finish on a garden bench seat, and over a hundred years after it was applied (by my grandfather, a professional Master French Polisher and furniture restorer. His credentials were impeccable, as he maintained a workshop at Windsor Castle during the renovations and modifications to enable Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to move in with their young family), and it looks as good as new. Unfortunately, he did not have an apprentice in later life, so his precise blends of ingredients and proportions thereof died with him, but if it has shellac, turpentine, beeswax and pine tar in it and no artificial ingredients you won't go far wrong - I've got a decent nose and the smell in his workshop was distinctive and unique, but those ingredients I could recognise by smell from an early age. Note that higher concentrations of shellac result in a glossier finish and can crack as that shine comes at a price, which makes it fine for indoor use but will need heavy maintenance for exterior applications (scraping back to bare wood, sanding down, and re-varnishing. BTDT, thankfully on a yacht, not a beehive, as I doubt if the bees would be very happy). Even a glossy finish should last several years though, so if that is your thing, go for it, but be aware of the longer-term detriments. The big advantage of both wax and real natural varnish (other than a high gloss) as finishes is that they never totally dry out, so remain flexible and do not crack with the hive (or anything else, like the garden bench my grandfather stained and varnished) as it swells and contracts with changing humidity and temperature. If you must use paint, acrylic paint has similar properties but will be more easily damaged when you are working with the hive, particularly when prying sections apart. I just love the natural wood grain, and know just enough about mixing it to be dangerous :) so I've always bought it already mixed by someone who takes the craft seriously - but at least have my grandfather's advice to be able to make an informed choice. If you are going to mix your own, do it outside and facing downwind, so that the fumes travel away from you. If you have a large quantity of outside hive components to do, it could be less expensive. Mixing always results in some waste, and if you need to mix for each bottom board, slatted rack, hive body, all supers, and the top cover individually, the waste adds up. If you mix once for all those components of ten hives the waste ends up as a tiny proportion and is once and done.

Wax melt and a brush it is then

Yes. Neonics are a systemic insecticide that’s applied to the corn seeds and is dispersed through all the plant tissue as it grows. Since most planters today propel the seed through the machine using air pressure it aerosolizes and is released at planting time. I hadn’t heard of it being released by the plant at harvest but it is theoretically possible in my opinion.