Painting boxes Efficiently

OK, I know we all say that in the winter is a great time to paint boxes and read bee books. Somehow I always manage to get all the way to spring without accomplishing this.

So it's time to move my overwintered nucs into boxes and to make splits and to move some bees around. There's a good chance that a camera person will be in my apiary this year, so I wanted my boxes to look slightly more like Martha Stewart. (As a well-known blog states, I am NOTMARTHA)

The GBA newsletter had an article this month about painting boxes in a stack using a paint roller. The author had found the method on YouTube. I went and looked at several videos on YouTube an set about trying this out for quick, efficient box painting for the procrastinating beekeeper.

You start by stacking the boxes one on top of the other, upside down. An adorable boy on a YouTube video explains that putting them upside down means that when you paint the handholds, the paint collects on the ledge instead of dripping down. I painted the boxes on top of dirt, mildew, whatever.

First I painted the hand holds since I wanted them to be a different color: green. Then I painted the boxes blue with a roller. The whole process was quick as a wink - took less than 30 minutes. I only know because I was baking bread and started when the bread went into the oven and I was done by the moment the timer went off to tell me the bread was done!

So yesterday I ended up with delicious homemade bread and lovely boxes all in the same day. By afternoon, it was warm enough and the paint was dry so I moved one of the overwintered nucs into its new home.