At 06:18 PM 3/20/2007, you wrote:
>> Oh, yes, another important thing: Do not paint the hive (only the 
>> exterior corners). This allows the hive to breathe, moisture to 
>> escape.

I've constantly seen advise such as this.  Many times it's stated not to paint the inside of the hive 'because the wood absorbs extra moisture in the hive', or similar statements.  There a couple of problems with this theory.  First, unless you rotate your boxes often, once the wood becomes saturated it provides no more benefit.  Second, if your bees consume 60 pounds of honey over the winter, they will emit nearly 40 pounds of water (if my chemistry is correct), or about 4.7 gallons of water.  Exactly how much do you expect two deep bodies to absorb or how fast will 5 gallons of water pass though 3/4" of solid wood.  (And if it did, your hives would rot in no time)  Bees also tend to put a thin coat of propolis on the inside of the hive, effectively painting the inside of the hive themselves.  And finally, many have used plastic hive bodies with great success and these bodies have no ability to absorb water.

So in my own opinion, providing proper ventilation is far more important.  But this is far from new news as the books I've been reading from the 1850's say basically the exact same thing.  Not painting the hive, or using some protective finish or rot resistant wood (cedar, etc.) sounds like a great thing for beekeeping supply companies.  They'll be happy to sell you new equipment every year or two.

-Tim

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