Our bee source has been busy enough that they didn’t have any bees for us when we wanted.  As a result I had everything ready to go with no bees to populate my equipment.  Might as well take advantage of the situation and do some painting.  Rot is a huge problem in warm humid Florida, so this should really help the lifespan of the hive bodies.  I picked up and assembled two medium supers for when the bees start getting busy with the honey.

Always start with primer.  It soaks in a provides a good adhesion surface.

I could have followed up with a coat or two of basic white paint and they would have been perfectly acceptable there.  But, I feel very inspired by Steve’s use of color over at Woodworking for Mere Mortals, so I am going a little wild.

It is the brightest yellow I could find in the paint section.  I have no idea of the bees will see the color or not, but I sure as heck will be able to!  I numbered the bodies so I can keep track of any observations I make for the bee journal.  “F” is for the hive top feeder.

Ester

A lot of people seem to name their hives, but I figured I wouldn’t really bother.  That was until I was reading about beeswax and how it is made, in large part, of long ester chains.  Monica suggested we name just the queen and ester was stuck in my head.  After a week of ester bouncing around with me I couldn’t resist; the name of our first hive has been decided.  Ester comes home Saturday 3/7/15 morning!