Paint

Find any painter with a wholesale license. Get him to go to sherwin-williams and buy the mis mixes. He can take you with him to look. You can buy exterior house paint normally selling for 30 to 40 dollars per gallon for a mere 3.00 per gallon. Any light color will do. Dark colors will absorb too much heat in the summer.

It seems many are dipping their hives in a rosin/wax mixture that really protects them rather than painting. I saw pictures today and they looked great.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/

what is the cost of using rosin/wax mixture viruses paint :?:

I'm not sure, I haven't tried it. You could go to http://www.beesource.com/forums/index.php and search for this method, then contact those who are doing it. I've heard it said that it really preserves them. I would think it would last longer than painting, would seal the wood better.

Here's a how to from Michael Bush:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesdipping.htm

I don't know of anybody selling the rosin/wax mixture though...

I go to the paint stores like Duron, and buy their mis-tints for $3 a gallon. All my nucs used for breeding are different colors. Most of my regular hives are white however as they are requested that way.

I'm Cheap;
Wife go's to yard sales, lot's of partially full cans of paint.
FREE, people are to lazy to take it to the hazard waste yard !

Best find, 3, 5 gal. buckets of a good outside latex, never opened.

Garbage trucks can't take it .

Anyone for dumpster diving ?
PCM

Dumpster diving! Oh, yeah!
My farm is next to a municiple/township building and park. Once a year, they have clean up day. Which is a day that you can bring anything to the township, and they will dispose of it. They line up huge trash containers...one for electronics, one for steel scrape, etc. And they allow anyone to hang out and take what they want.

It is amazing what people throw away. I swear that I got bikes because the tire went flat. And at least one lawn mower that needed a spark plug.

Of course I'm always up for some wood for the next bee project.