HOW TO PAINT A BEEHIVE

A lot of you have been curious about our hives and the process involved.  Since I'm a newbie beekeeper (or is that newbee?) I'm having to learn it all from books and other blogs so to return the favor, I'll share our journey here!

One thing I was nervous about was painting.  When you buy your hives, you can buy them either painted or unpainted.  We wanted traditional white hives (with a barn red twist) and since my woodworking skills are still in their infancy, we opted for unpainted but already built.  It is, generally speaking, about the least expensive option, short of buying them unpainted AND unassembled.  

The first big choice is what type of paint to use and how to apply it.  

The graphic below was very helpful to me, I'm a visual person and like to see it.  This image comes from the Essex County Beekeeping Association.

I decided on a low VOC paint that had primer mixed in.  There is a lot of chatter and information about type of paint to use.  Since the interior of a beehive should NEVER be painted or stained, exterior paint/stain is sort of a personal choice.  Of course, painting/staining is optional, many beekeepers leave their hives unpainted and let them weather naturally.  With our high humidity and hot Summers, we needed paint to keep them from weathering TOO fast.  Painted wood exposed to the elements 24/7 will age rapidly and so the paint will slow this process down.  The white color will also keep the ladies cool in the heat of our Summer.

We chose an exterior paint, Zinsser brand, called Ultra-White.  It's a more high end paint but it's guaranteed for 5 years not to fade, peel or mildew/mold.  It's used to paint barns and white picket fences.  We'll soon see!  

Since a hive box, other than the top/roof, is open ended, I stood there for a bit to figure out the easy way to do it.  I thought about hanging them somehow.  I had two sawhorses and as fate would have it on the day I painted, I had just bought the landscape timbers for the flower beds.  I looked at it all laying there, put two and two together and voila!

Painting beehives

It made life SO much easier.  I could paint one side of all of them at once, then just flip them around to the next side and paint them all again.  I'm sure I'm not the first to figure out this method but hey, I was excited to come up with it by myself using the stuff I had on hand, LOL!

Easy way to paint beehives

I painted the hive bodies, the bottom boards and stands using a sponge roller.  It went on easily and quickly.  Interesting side note, while it's not entirely clear when and why hives were first painted white, it is believed that white is a clean color and of course connotes purity.  That implied the honey was clean and pure as well and people might be more apt to buy honey from 'pure hives'. 

Painting beehives white

It took about four coats to get a nice finish.  With the sunny day I had, each coat of the latex paint dried quickly.  Oh, I forgot to mention, I used a semi-gloss latex because it's easier to keep clean.  A flat matte finish will attract mildew and dirt.  I suppose gloss isn't really necessary but it's up to you.

Beehive painting

Since we got the copper, English style roofs, they were a bit harder to paint.  Fortunately, they have this convenient little ridge along the top that let them sit flat and so I used a smaller regular brush and painted the ends and sides.  The red is called "Colonial Red" and it dried darker than it went on and became a perfect barn red!  While this is a dark color, the roof is more of a decorative element and won't impact heat inside the hive.  

English garden hive copper roof

The last thing I had to do was tape off the copper and paint the top ridge, the same white as the hive bodies. 

Barn red and white beehives

We loved this picture because it shows how they will match the barns.  Even though they aren't near them, it will tie in something on that side of the property with something on the other side.  I don't have the pictures of them put together because they tend to stick if not allowed to completely dry...so the roofs will stay off until the last day.

There will be several beekeeping related posts this week as we anticipate their arrival at the end of the week.  

Tomorrow, the beehive area I finished over the weekend!

Here are our previous bee related posts leading up to the big day:

SELECTING A BEEHIVE

ORDERING BEES ONLINE

It's gonna BEE an exciting week!