Last year my beehive was destroyed by a skunk. I had set a monitoring camera in front of my home and that’s how I found out who did it. Skunks often visit my garden, so I didn’t bother about it in the beginning. One night that skunk came and sat in front of the beehive scratching on the entrance. It dug and scratched the front portion of the hive and started eating the bees. I was really shocked watching the video. Soon I called the humane skunk removal service and they set a trap near the beehive. The next day i got caught and they took it with them.
This year I have secured my beehive properly. I hope that this year I will not see any skunks.
Concerning the flow hive roof: i have just refurbished my mothers flow roof- after just less than one year on the hive it was in a poor state. Her roof was the red cedar type and she prepped it with Tung Oil. After 10 months the top ‘shingle’ board had all shrunk and/or the screws had walked out- so that there were 4-5mm gaps at all the edges. The top shingles had turned a dark grey from the sun- and the wood was starting to split and crack (the rest of the hive is still reddish coloured- only the top has greyed considerably). In windy storms water could easily enter the roof at multiple points, and the entire thing was rickety… .
I dissembled it and dipped all the parts in hot wax, then I painted the top of the roof whilst the planks were still hot out of the wax with white enamel paint . Then we added some layers of aluminum foil insulation sheeting and a layer of coreflute as extra insulation under the shingles before reassembling. This makes the roof largely waterproof. I also added a few extra screws on the top boards and on the frame to make the entire thing solid again.
I think many flow users will find that they will very soon have to do some sort of maintenance to their own roofs if they hope they will last a long time… I would also suggest that you have a good close look at your flow roof to see if the boards have shrunk and the screws need re-tightening.
Concerning securing it: the bees cannot propolise the flow roof in place, only the inner cover- so I think it is a good idea. Mine have withstood several very windy storms OK without anything- however I don’t want to risk having a roof blow off in the middle of a storm- so I will be using spring clips on mine in the future just to be safe. We had a very powerful storm here a few weeks back and I had to run out at 2am and put bricks onto all my hives becuase I was worried they would be ripped off. I got soaked the bone in about 5 seconds. My flow hives are the hoop pine variety- and the wood roof is far more solid than the cedar ones- at a guess the hoop pine easily weighs twice as much as the cedar does. So they feel more secure, and more robust. However after the storm I found one one of my hoop pine roofs that water had entered and pooled on the inner cover inside- this is despite the fact the roof is hot wax dipped and highly water resistant- and it is only a few months old. I think it was forced in through the cracks in the shingles by the high winds and air pressure changes. I now plan to add insulation and waterproofing on the inside of these roofs as well. The cedar roofs are very light- and I think could blow off more easily.
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I don’t suppose you managed to grab any photos, did you? I would love to see how this all looks. Thank you muchly!!! 
your wish is my command- sorry photo quality is not brilliant (camera phone)- and I don’t have any photos of the actual dipping, painting or insulating- and this was my first attempt at both hot wax dipping with immediate painting whilst the wood is hot. I used enamel spray paint as it was handy. As the wood underneath was such a dark grey (almost black-ish)- the grain pattern still showed through the white paint in parts- which wasn’t entirely a bad thing. Also I found that the red cedar reacts very differently to pine when you dip it- it seems to absorb a larger quantity of wax- and in the end the surfaces can be quite slick with wax- whereas with pine when you remove it from the boiling wax- the surface is slick- but very rapidly as it cools all the wax is drawn back into the timber leaving it feeling dry to the touch. The cedar does this but not as much.
I imagine painting pine will be much easier than the cedar was. I think in Australia where we have these 40+ C heatwaves- having a white reflective roof cannot be a bad idea- and also Mum reported that the new roof performed very well following a big rain this week. A Painted waxed finish seems to be almost the gold standard for treating timber hives… All in All I hope that this treatment will add at least 5 years to the life of the roof. At the same time as we replaced the roof we moved the hive to a new lower stand that my brother made- the original stand height made removing the flow box and doing inspections quite difficult- the new stand is designed so you can place the top box on the stand during inspections and with a good rear area for flow extracting- it’s a great improvement:
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I’ve been experimenting, as I do, with different designs for hive roofs. My latest version is what I call semi telescoping. I have overhangs on the front and sides but the back is open. This is so I can use it on my Flow hive instead of the migratory cover I use now. What would once have been the inner cover is now built into the roof as a ceiling to the hive. A couple of 40mm round vents in this ceiling provide an outlet for humidity. On top of this ceiling is a layer of polystyrene foam insulation, 10mm thick at the edge and 20mm thick in the centre. A top layer of 3mm ply completes the structure. As I put it on, I squash the edges of the foam to make a barrel shaped roof. The top gets covered in 0.3mm aluminium flashing as a waterproofing layer.
I will document the next one I make and post a link.
Thank you, Jack. It looks very nice. Can’t see the insulation at all - it must all be underneath the roof?
I like the new stand too - I guess you do inspections from the side of the hive?
Yep- basically 3 layers of thin woven aluminum insulation sheet material and a piece of coreflute- they seal over the ‘a frame’ and then the wood shingles are screwed down over them. We taped up the sides if the core flute so the air was trapped inside. The insulation is thin but will make a difference- and the white roof should also reflect more heat.
After I posted this I went and gave the same treatment to one of my hoop pine flow roofs- except for the paint. With that one I just tacked the insulation material and coreflute into the ceiling without taking it apart- took about half an hour- should stop any water getting into the inner cover (as happened in a recent storm) and deflect quite a bit of radiant heat. Can’t hurt in the winter either.
And yes inspect from the sides- we will remove the table thing on the other side so you can get at both sides eventually.
Thank you, Jack. Very clear explanation. So far, my roof has held up pretty well in California. As we are coastal, we rarely get days over 30C, but if I start to see signs of heat stress and the roof is deteriorating, I will certainly steal some/all of your ideas! 
) Dawn,
Yah ! We do have coons here. I see them
walking our fences at times. Some get to
be rather big critters.
Today is sunny n broke 43 dgs mark but started @ 24 dgs at dawn this morning. A little voice told me I’d better check my two healthy hive so I did. My flow was pretty okay but check the Quilt (dry) but Alder (my double deep 5 frame Nuc has move up near the top of the upper super. They have all but finished last two winter patties … The quilt was damp too. I Alder seems to be at the END of their honey so working the patties now… I’m going to have to really watch these GOers ! Don’t want to loss it now !
Cheers,
Gerald
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