All my hives have metal tops on the telescoping lids; don't know if that makes a difference. Doesn't seem to matter to the ticks. I suspect it does, here in IL the metal is too hot for a tick to live. I suspect that may also be true of my unpainted tops as they are mostly black wood (plywood ) the others which are painted white are always covered. Picking up 100 a day would be childs play. with 32 hives in a yards. most have 2/3 ticks on them. Cool to watch as you walk by, they go from dormant to antene up and waving arms very quickly. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html