The Best Paint for Bee Hives

Painting the Town Anything but Red

Author’s Note: earlier this year I announced that I would begin writing two essays a week. The first would be abstract, gleaning inspiration from the natural world, family, and tradition. These are free for everyone. The second would be tangible, focused on hard skills, lessons, and stories from our little homestead, meadow, and forest. This is of the latter type, which I categorize as Reports from the High Wood. In many ways, these essays serve to show paid supporters what and who they are actually supporting.

Last year my wife and I decided to continue the family tradition of beekeeping and I am so often asked if I have any tips or even a guide for the person thinking about beginning beekeeping. I am not an expert beekeeper. I am very much a novice. However, as we end our first year and prepare to expand our apiary by ten hives in May, I am reflecting on what went well and what we could do better this year. Enjoy.

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I looked to my wife today and told her there are only three more weekends before we pickup our bees. She laughed. It was such a long cold winter spent preparing and waiting. Now? We feel like we’re running out of time. Before our little tireless workers take flight, threading our little humming meadow with their golden light, I need to turn to their homes—the hive boxes—and the question of what they’ll wear this season.

Rachael McCampbell, Smoky Mountain Beehives. I like this painting because the colors are appropriate.

Painting a hive is an important shield against rain, against sun, against the slow gnaw of time on wood. Last year I gave little thought to painting hives and I posit that thoughtlessness partially contributed to the losses we suffered. The paint for the hive bodies has to suit the residents and the residents are sensitive.

Most people probably don’t think the paint they use on a hive matters. They grab whatever exterior latex was cheapest at the hardware store, slap it on, and call it good. Experience has a way of humbling you, though. We humans know that bees are resilient but we have taken that for granted and now all the little stressors we have placed upon them have added up to something unsustainable.

I have already vowed to not use any plastic in our hives or packaging and argued little efforts like these have further reaching effects than we might realize. If I am already going that far, what is doing a little extra research into paint?

I dug in. This is what I found and what paint I ultimately bought: