# Exterior Latex Paint: Hive box curing period to bee safe.



## vdotmatrix (Apr 5, 2014)

I just primed and painted some hive boxes and was wondering how long should I wait before using them.

Is there a danger with exterior latex paint and my bees?

I need to switch out the boxes on this one colony because I trusted ECCO wood treatment and now i see everything is warping, spreading and making more work for me.
thanks


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

If it's drybto the touch and only on outside of box slap in on the stack


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## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

as said when its dry. no problem.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

If it's latex, you can paint the outside of the boxes with bees in them.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

vdotmatrix said:


> I just primed and painted some hive boxes and was wondering how long should I wait before using them.
> 
> Is there a danger with exterior latex paint and my bees?
> 
> ...


Depends on the paint brand. Some are much faster at curing than others. 
By curing I mean permanently dry. Some paints will be dry to the touch very quickly but still take a few days to cure. 

Ask a union painter who paints a lot of wooden exterior doors, doesn't pay for the paint, and he'll tell you to use this. It's probably the best there is...until you look at that price. Gee whiz. http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/products/catalog/resilience-exterior-acrylic-latex/

My painter friend uses that paint because he can paint a door, edges first, and by the time he's done he can close the door, walk away, and not have to worry about it being painted shut. It dries and cures very fast due to whatever they put in it to make it dry and cure at 35 degrees F.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

As long as it's dry I slap them on. I have some Metalatex I got cheap from Sherwin Williams... made for metal, but painted over Kilz 2 the stuff just doesn't come off the boxes. Very high gloss.

Anyway... I have put the last coat on boxes at about 11 or midnight and then put them on the hives at 9-10 in the morning. If I were hiving a swarm into them I might be somewhat cautious so you don't give them something that stinks and help them decide to leave. But if you're just swapping boxes onto another colony or adding new boxes... don't worry about it.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

aunt betty said:


> Depends on the paint brand. Some are much faster at curing than others.
> By curing I mean permanently dry. Some paints will be dry to the touch very quickly but still take a few days to cure.
> 
> Ask a union painter who paints a lot of wooden exterior doors, doesn't pay for the paint, and he'll tell you to use this. It's probably the best there is...until you look at that price. Gee whiz. http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/products/catalog/resilience-exterior-acrylic-latex/
> ...


Aunt Betty,

Hope I do not get on your bad side but...

Sherwin Williams, even their best of their best exterior [Emerald® Exterior Acrylic Latex Paint] is complete crap when it comes to painting beehives. And I do not say this lightly...

I have painted professionally on and off for over 40 years...still have my paint contractor's license...and I was talked into trying what is suppose to be Sherwin Williams's best exterior paint. What a total nightmare!

After applying an excellent primer, I applied their Emerald® Exterior Acrylic Latex Paint...first one coat...did not cover...so I applied the second coat...did not cover, finally applied the third coat...still did not cover. 

Never, ever again! Kelly Moore's 1250 covers hive wood in one simple coat! Heck, even Home Depot's Behr does light years better than the Sherwin Williams's crap at $72.99 per gallon.

I will never use Sherwin Williams's Emerald® Exterior Acrylic Latex Paint again, and I now tell my painting contractor friends to run away as fast as they can from it...

Regarding drying/curing times...you are right, various paints have different curing times. I am a person that plays it safe rather than sorry, so I give all my hive boxes an entire week to dry/cure. Wanna know how I test them before placing them on the hives? Real simple...the nose test...can you still smell the fresh paint? I wait until there isn't even a hint of the paint smell before I place them on the colonies...


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I paint and swap bees into those boxes after just a couple of days in the sun. The main risk is that the edges will stick together if it hasn't cured (and it cures more slowly in cooler temps). I am painting now w/ Benjamin Moore primer and BM exterior latex acrylic. I like to start with BIN white-paigmented shellac on the end grains and knots, then primer, followed by two tops coats of the main color. It's fully ready to go in a just day or two. Sometimes I'll heat cure the edges with a hairdryer if I'm really pressed for time. I, too, will re-coat boxes with the bees in them on a cool afternoon when the bees aren't out and about much, or late in the day when it's warmer.

The big question is - why are we painting now when we've had the whole of a warm, dry summer to get it done? It's a mystery to me, but here I am in Oct. painting boxes, again - I know they're laughing at me up at Betterbee.

Enj.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

Enj,

I heard BM paint is great to work with, and yes, I hear you on the edges that stick together...that can be a real bummer...

I am wondering if anyone here has used oil based top coats on beehive boxes and if so, what were the results... 

It seems to be oil based paints may last longer than the latex paints.

To decrease the drying time for oil based products, I have often used Japan Drier. We refinished the massive double front doors of an entire block of $1,000,000+ homes of a home association in the Bay Area and they wanted the doors rehung each evening. So we HAD to use the Japan Drier. Started laying down the Marine Spar Varnish at 7 am, then, had to have the _dry_ doors rehung by 8 pm each evening. The stuff really works well.

Anyone here ever use oil based paints on their boxes, and if so, what were the results?


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

soarwitheagles said:


> Aunt Betty,
> 
> Hope I do not get on your bad side but...
> 
> ...


Gee that's a lot of words. 

Resilience is different than emerald.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

That resilience gets pretty awful reviews even on their website. I have noticed that even the same paint will have entirely different properties in different colors.

For example, we our whole interior of our home is painted with Behr Premium Plus Ultra in Eggshell. Paint snobs might turn their nose up... I don't know. It works well for how awful and impatient I am at painting. So we painted all but bathroom when we moved in, I painted the bathroom about a year ago. And we just repainted the kitchen and main living room/dining area (one big room). Usually that stuff goes on and one coat almost looks like it's going to cover, but once it dries you can see it needs a second coat. Two coats is no big deal. When I first painted the big room we used, if I recall a gallon and a quart or perhaps two gallons to paint the big room plus the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

To cover with a different color in JUST the big room I used nearly three gallons this time and had to do three coats and in truth it would look better with a forth coat (but I'm not going to do it). 

Same exact paint, different color. One of the bedrooms was the same the first time too. It's kind of frustrating. It doesn't even paint the same way. Maybe that's normal for paint to behave in such a fashion... I don't know.


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## GSkip (Dec 28, 2014)

Shortly after retiring from service I was hired by a local company which makes paint to setup a safety program. To do so I needed to learn how to make paint. Well the short of it is they made paint for many of the big name brands and the recipe was the same no matter who's name went on the label, el-cheap-o or the fancy name brand. Paint is paint no matter what brand!


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

A few years ago my I sent my wife to get 5 gallons of paint for new supers. she came home with stain and I was fit to be tied. In a crunch with about a hundred to do we used it. Looks better, lasts longer, Doesn't peel, doesn't chalk, never had to reepaint in later years. Never use oil or latex again.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Joel said:


> A few years ago my I sent my wife to get 5 gallons of paint for new supers. she came home with stain and I was fit to be tied. In a crunch with about a hundred to do we used it. Looks better, lasts longer, Doesn't peel, doesn't chalk, never had to reepaint in later years. Never use oil or latex again.


Any particular kind of stain? I've thought about it when I see it on sale mistint or whatever. Trouble is my parents deck is toast within a couple years and they have to wash and reseal. So I've never put much stock in the stuff.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Have had the same issue with my deck using the same stain I use on hives. We use Olympia and do 2 coats. Drying time is longer. We were painting semi gloss latex every 4 years and the 2nd round never lasted on top of a failing undercoat. Semi gloss repelled water and solarization better but man how I learned to hate painting. flat oil base paint always got chalky and never repainted well. I think because you don't have the wear like shoes on a deck, and stain is in the wood, not just on it looks better and protects longer.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

solid stains last much longer on vertical surfaces. like hive boxes
it will not hold up on covers or bottom boards, gets ratty fast just like on your deck.

I have some boxes covered with solid stain brown for 3 yrs and it's not any better than flat latex exterior, it looks like it will fail sooner.
the tops and bb's covered at the same time have all been prep't and recovered with flat exterior latex, 2 yrs later. 
Surprisingly, I covered some boxes in white 15yr fence stain and they still look great, 4 yrs.
flat latex exterior has the best longevity when the surface is prep'd correctly 7-10 yrs. Jury is still out on the white fence stain.


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