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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Sunday, March 06, 2016

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.



6 comments:

  1. My first ever package of bees arrives April 9th. I made my hive stand today :-) Thanks for your tips and for sharing your knowledge!!

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  2. Good luck - such a great hobby to begin!

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  3. Ha! You go, girl! I wish painting top bar hives was as efficient, but nooooo... Sigh. I still need to finish painting my two top bar hives - soon!

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  4. In the process of painting mine too - all of them have a base coat of white and some will get the colour treatment after. I definitely didn't save any time doing it though (Doh!)

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  5. Anonymous5:03 AM

    The other thing you can do to gain even more efficiency is to borrow some kids and get them to paint them in stacks. Got about 60 painted in spring using this method...

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  6. Thanks for this great post; our listeners loved your post so much we chatted about it on this month’s Beekeeping Podcast.

    We must try this roller idea...Gary and Margaret

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