I brought a classic flow hive a couple of years ago but never got around to learning about bees or actually getting any. Last week I caught a swarm and now have a very happy hive. But I never got around to painting it!
I have left the honey super off for now and could paint that and the roof. I am guessing it is too late to paint the brood box right? Will it matter much?
I wouldn’t paint the brood box with bees in it. It depends on whether the hive is WRC or Araucaria as to whether the hive needs painting or not. Araucaria doesn’t do well unpainted. Actually I treat all my Araucaria bee boxes with copper naphthenate before painting. Even with paint, it doesn’t perform well because water seems to find it’s way under paint. WRC performs much better unpainted, however someone recently told me that their WRC roof developed dry rot before she ditched it in preference for a flat roof.
Hi there I would follow Jeff’s advise…My 2cents…I got the worst stung of my life in the attempt of applying the ID number on the side of the hive…Bees are very sensitive to odours, smell in this case…and apparently they didn’t appreciate it at all!!
Fun fact is that they’ve warned me twice by pushing me far-away from the hive…but stubbornly I kept going…and I got what I deserved…
Hi Waldats, it’s also worth remembering that an increase in co2 from us exhaling will trigger bees into becoming defensive.