Please tell me I have not ruined my new hive!

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CJW

New Bee
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Jan 20, 2011
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Derby
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I have recently bought my first National Beehive. It red cedar as recommended by most of the book. I know it acceptable to put it put without treating the wood BUT my other half likes the colour of the wood as is and didn't want a "grey" hive in the garden. I want to keep the other half on side and develope a joint interest in bees so I did some research and read that Danish Oil could be used to preserve the wood for bee hives.

I treated the outside but for some reason I also treated the inside with Danish oil. Now it has dawned on me that there was no need to treat the inside. I am worried I will harm the bees if I put them in my new hive this Spring.

Will the Danish oil on the inside cause heat / condensation problems?
Have I just made a catostrophic mistake as a newby?

Any opinion / advice would be apprecaited to help on my steep learning curve!

CJ
 
Your hive will be okay,the danish oil will of soaked in well, and any odour pretty much gone by the time you have bee's.
 
I recently bought a hive from hivemaker, he has proved to be a fantastic source of information. You might want to ask him, he builds hives and has successfully kept bees for a long time.

Post script. I told you Hivemaker was good, he answered while I was typing this and I didn't see his post until after i had posted this!
 
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Might be a good idea to make sure there is good air circulation inside, eg store it with the roof off, to allow the solvents to clear.
 
You could always give it a rub down with some rough sandpaper on the inside to remove any surface sheen left by the D oil. But more importantly as previously stated give it plenty of air.
 
You have not ruined your new hive

There, hows that!

seriously, as said before by Hivemaker the oil will have soaked in before you install the bee's so i would not worry about it.
 

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