Coming out of Winter Doldrums

[brooksbeefarm]

Sleet, snow, freezing weather today, so it's shop work today, and Oh, Yes, calves could come at any moment. Been cleaning and painting all parts of the hives on the outside of them, deeps, med, and shallow supers, lids, and bottom boards,.Made 10 nucs, 10 med. supers, 5 deeps, and 10 top feeders. Now to repair deeps or cut them down to med. supers, repair or burn med. and shallow supers, reframe 11 queen excluders, repair some top feeders that leaked,paint and repair several lids and bottom board's. Question, do you paint your bottom boards? i; painted some of my solid ones, they were so dirty and nasty looking and i couldn't get them clean. Today i'm going to take a plumbers torch to the bur comb on my queen excluders  Hey, Squirt and Perry, i found that the plumbers torch works real good on plastic foundation. Jack
PS. I'm hoping i have enough bees left to use all this equipment? This has been a bad winter.

[LazyBkpr]

LOL.. torch might actually get ALL the old wax off plastic frames!  Good idea Jack!   

   I dont usually paint my entire bottom board. I paint so that there is paint up to a couple inches past the entrance...   mostly because i am cheap and lazy...  three or four yeas of use, I can replace that board for about 4 dollars, and making new ones keeps me busy when its nasty outside.   having said that...  i really doubt that painting the whole bottom board will cause harm with todays paints.

[brooksbeefarm]

That's what i was thinking with Latex paint? besides, it's something i can do setting down and keeps me out of the house where i get threats of bodily harm. Jack

[riverbee]

jack, i stain all my equipment, (water base) except for the supers, they get painted.  the bottom boards, when i recoat them, i use a mix of yellow ammonia and water, spray it on, scrub off, then i use TSP to wash the board down.

queen excluders get sent through the solar wax melter. doesn't take long, but a torch does work.

ps i don't use a plumbers torch on my fully drawn waxed plastic frames  ..........