Sealing cedar flow hive

can you please suggest products to seal the cedar flow hive with to keep the lovely wooden appearance.

There are few threads that go into the pros and cons of different treatments.

The tung oil is very popular but will require re-treatment every couple years depending on your climate.

Some use wood treatments/sealants for decks, some have tried polywhey.

I am a fan of hot wax frying/dipping, if it is available to you, for a more permanent treatment.

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Total beginner here and I don’t have a location to wax dip my hives but I was thinking about sealing/weather using my flow hive with aerosolized liquid rubber (using a product like flex seal) Has anyone done this? Are the VOCs too high? Do these products contain harmful chemicals that I need to avoid?

I’m sure it would work, especially if you allow it to dry and off-gas completely. But not sure if I would appreciate the color or appearance. What wood type is your flow hive? Outdoor house paint is probably your best option if it’s something other than cedar.

For cedar you can go natural or use some sort of deck water sealant or drying oil, like tung.

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Thanks for the reply!

I have ordered the Cedar Flow Hive 2+ and was planning to oil (for sheen) and prime it before applying a clear flex seal liquid rubber coating and then allow plenty of time to off-gas before introducing my nuc. I didn’t want to go the way of exterior paint because I know that cedar is naturally weather resistant and I love the look of oiled cedar. I was hoping to avoid the 6 month or annual reapplication of a tung oil or linseed oil.

Here in Medellin we get a short bursts of rain everyday followed by sun.

I’d be interested to see how it looks and holds up!

Only treat the outside surfaces!

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Do you have any pics of your finished product? Did it last? Looking fir any info from your project.

Don’t how any recent pictures but this is from last summer.

The hive on the right is a wax dipped aucauria
Hive.

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