BBKA Forum

I must be bored because I've decided to paint our spare wooden hive stuff!

I've painted poly-nucs with masonry paint before, but what to use for wooden hives please? The advice on the web is a bit conflicting (as usual).

We'd like a nice matt / camo / green colour as we have some out apriaries which we'd like to remain discrete.

Recommendations of brands and suppliers would be useful too.

Many thanks

[East Midlands]

A mate uses wilkos wax enriched wood paint. He likes it.

Another Mate uses graffiti spray paints on his poly stuff, don't know if it would work on wood

I suspect masonry paint would also work on wood

Wood needs to breathe or it could rot, so I use woodstain on any non-cedar stuff I have. Most are a brown colour of some sort although my Nuc 7 is quite a bright shade of red (still woodstain) (and thus easily remembered). I use a green masonry paint for poly nucs - it's quite visible in winter - a dirty mud brown would probably blend in better. I have some camo netting I used a few years back to disguise some hives that were near a road.

As Adam has mentioned wood needs to breath and can rot from the inside out when painted..not that ceder needs any treatment at all i still painted my boxes with brown ronseal fence preserver just to make them all the same colour..all my poly nucs are painted with green floor paint and also some of my poly hives to tidy them up..

Cuprinol Garden shades allows wood to breathe and comes in many shades, I have been using this type of paint for 14 years with no rotting of hive parts.

Don't forget to check the can to see what it says about "safe for bees" that may well chew what you put on.....
Cuprinol Garden Shades "believed to be safe for animals when dry" - what does that mean? Is that a definite maybe? But if Neal has used it for 14 years.....
Anything with solvents - personally, I'd avoid..... or check with manufacturer.
Danish oil works well and lasts for years, trouble is bees use it as a base for propolis

I have even painted hives with bees in residence using the Cuprinol shades no dead outs.