Peter, I had a feeling you were dipping, hard to remember what was said in
those motel rooms, and by whom.
I have never found any need to paint inside copper treated boxes.
Interesting about the metal hives. A bod down the coast a bit from here
designed and trialled some years ago. He was going to manufacture them for
sale, but no more was heard. It is certainly hot and humid here, at least
during the summer, winter might be a little different though. Trevor and I
also work the same country west of the divide were it is hot in the summer
but cold in winter, sometimes snow. Still it gave us a major flow last
winter.
I suspect some of the differences in dipping results are to do with the
timber species, and climate. On this side of the country manufacturers use
hoop pine or radiata pine. Hoop pine is far superior, in fact, if cut from
old trees and without sapwood, a difficult ask as it is almost
indistinguishable, it hardly needs preserving. In these two at least, it is
my understanding that the wax only penetrates the sapwood to any extent.
Our red cedar (not a cedar, but a hardwood) and silky oak (not an oak) are
sometimes used by beekeepers cutting their own timber. The cedar is very
long lasting and needs no preservative. A colleague cut some in 1956 for
bee
boxes and they are still in use, It a soft timber though, and corrodes
nails. Silky oak is also excellent, but the easily seen sapwood is prone to
powder post borer attack and rot. It was once in common use for window
frames etc. Nowadays both are far too expensive for bee boxes, they are
sought after by the furniture industry.
The beekeeper who started me in beekeeping in Canberra, a coldish and dry
climate, reckoned there was no need to preserve the hoop pine boxes. He may
have been correct, he only shifted within the area. A couple of years after
moving here, they were full of rot.
Geoff Manning
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