Pros & Cons of Styrofoam Beehives

Construction

• Styrofoam hive components are created with molding techniques, so they do not have the flaws associated with slight errors in measuring or cutting like wooden hives. Uniform Styrofoam components assemble easily with no tools, and only require glue to hold them together. Meanwhile, wooden hive bodies need to be fitted together and secured at the corners with nails or screws. One drawback to using Styrofoam is that the beekeeper cannot cut and build his own hives from scrap material as he can with wood.

Weather Proofing

• Styrofoam beehives do not need a coat of paint to seal them. However, they may be painted with water-based paint. Water does not leak into Styrofoam hives, and the thick Styrofoam walls provide considerable insulation value for warmth during cold weather. Wooden beehives require paint or wood sealer to prevent rotting, and wood often allows water to leak into the hive. In northern areas, beekeepers often insulate their wooden hives by wrapping them in tar paper or by moving them into cold storage sheds for winter.

Breathability

• Styrofoam is air-tight, so it does not allow much air to pass through the hive unless used with a screen bottom-board Lack of air flow causes high humidity and condensation to form inside Styrofoam hives when sealed up for winter. Wooden beehives, on the other hand, do allow air-movement through the hive, regardless of bottom-board type.

Durability

• Polystyrene Styrofoam will stand up to heat, rain, snow and wind. It will not rot, but it can get discolored due to weathering. Mice, which are attracted to beehives during the winter, may damage the Styrofoam hives by chewing on them. Mice will often chew wooden hive components too, but it takes them longer to chew all the way through wood than it does to chew through Styrofoam.

Disease Prevention

• Styrofoam is easily scraped clean and sterilized with a bleach and water solution to reduce the likelihood of spreading disease when reusing hive components. If hives become infected with American foulbrood or European foulbrood, the hives may have to be destroyed in an incinerator since it is not permissible to burn Styrofoam. Typically, wooden hives are burned and buried when foulbrood infects and overtakes a hive.