Painted Hives

The hives are all sanded an painted. Only the outside is painted - the bees will protect the inside of the boxes with propolis (collected from tree buds). Shown here are two complete hives, working from the bottom up;

• The bottom board - where the bees enter the hive
• The brood box - where the queen lays eggs and pollen is stored.
  
• The brood box - where the queen also lays eggs, pollen is stored and honey is stored.
• A "Western" honey super - where the bees will store honey (for us to collect). To prevent the queen from laying eggs in the honey super, we will install a queen excluder to keep her in the bottom two boxes. Basically this is a screen that only the workers can fit through.
• A Feeder box - which we'll put sugar water into, to give the bees a good start, until the nectar really starts to flow.
• An inner cover.
• Lid.