Repainting Native Bee Hives With Bees Inside
Repainting native bee hives and keeping your timber bee hive looking its best plus protecting it from the weather means coats of paint yearly or every two years. But how to you do this with bees already living inside? Below is how we tackle this.
Tools and Items needed
- Vented plug / Flyscreen mesh so the bees still have air flowing into the hive.
- Paint Brush, Any good quality brush will do the trick.
- Paint of your choice. If you have one of our hives, On the painted hives we use British Paints, colour Artic Grey or with the stained hives we use Intergrain UltraDeck, colour Merbau.
- Propolis – This is not essential but can help if the bees are escaping any cracks or gaps.
Painting the hive
- Wait until night time and close the hive up with your choice of vent plug.
- Make sure any drain or vent holes are also covered up.
- Move the hive to a location that is flat, easy to work on and does not matter if it gets a bit of paint spilled onto.
- Make sure bees are not escaping out of any gaps. If they are, you can temporarily close up the gaps with propolis. This can be painted over. The bees might open the gap again or just leave it sealed.
- Follow the directions on the paint can to repaint the hive.
- We have found that if the hive is already painted only one coat is enough to top up the protection and get the hive looking good again.
- Wait until the paint has dried then move the hive back to the existing location.
- Remove the vent plug you have used.
- The hive will have completely dried overnight for the bees to safely come and go by the next morning.
Examples of how to close up the entrance so the bees can still breath.
Before
After
Congratulations you have a hive looking brand new again and ready to be protected from the elements.
If you have any questions on preparing and painting bee hives please feel free to contact us on 07 3206 0552 or info@abeec.com.au