Time For Paint To Dry

[Bush_84]

So I have a fair amount of poly hives assembled and painted inside and out.  This coming Sunday is going to be in the upper 50s nearing 60.  First warm day of its kind around here.  I have a nuc that's over wintered and would like to transfer them from their wood nuc and into the poly nuc.  So my question is, how long should the paint need to be sitting before the boxes can be used? 

[iddee]

15 to 20 minutes for water based paint. In other words, until dry to the touch. I paint occupied hives in late evening.

[BlueBee]

Primer dries very fast on poly (and wood).  I usually go with 2 top coats of latex on top of primer.  Beware of “blocking” issues with latex paint; especially on foam.  You’ll get a REAL mess if latex touches latex on foam hives; speaking from experience here :(  For example if you want to paint mating surfaces, you best use oil based enamel to avoid the blocking problems inherent in all latex paint.  I don’t paint mating surfaces.  Latex coats dry within a couple of hours, enamel takes a day.  

One of my biggest frustrations with homemade foam hives are the darn ants.  They love to live inside the foam if there is an easy way for them to tunnel in.  A good paint job goes a long way to help keep them out too.  They prefer to tunnel in through bare foam.