Beekeeper Laurence Edwards shows what happens when you burn and oil a beehive using the Japanese shou sugi ban technique. After three years, the treated hive shows almost no sun bleaching, while untreated cedar has turned silvery gray. The process is labor-intensive but offers long-term protection in wet climates.
Right, Zane, before we go, come and have a look at this here because this beehive is a standard Langstroth beehive, but about 3 years ago I did a process called shou sugi ban, and I probably butchered it, but basically what it means is you burn the beehive and create a real carbonized layer on the top. You then scratch it all off and bring it back to this, and then you can oil it. And this one here I put some really nice Danish oil on, and look how beautiful it looks after 3 years. These supers above it here, these are brand new cedar supers. So this is what it comes like. So this is what they come like when you buy them. This one here has had the Shou Sugi Ban with the oil on top, and look how nice and dark that is. Obviously not for places where it gets too warm, but this is Wales and we have lots and lots of rain. But let me show you over there because I want to show you what cedar naturally weathers into, because this might not be for everyone, but I just think this looks so, so nice. So this here is Second-grade cedar, but it is western red cedar, and it will just naturally turn this really nice silvery gray. Now the beauty of cedar is that you don't need to do anything with it, so you don't need to do shou sugi ban if you don't want to do it. You don't need to oil it. You literally do nothing. And I have conversations with people all over the world, and people say, oh, I use larch, or I use pine. And when I tell them in the UK we use cedar beehives like this, they say, whoa, cedar's so, so expensive. But luckily for us in the UK, it's not that much more expensive than pine. But I have to say, if I was a back garden beekeeper, one or two beehives in my garden, would I want this kind of silvery rough cedar effect? For me, probably not. I appreciate for some people, they really do like this silvery effect here. Or would you want something a little bit more polished? It's not for me to choose that one for you. I can appreciate the roughness of the gray, but I also do like the really nice longevity of that shou sugi ban. And it took me a while to do it. There's no denying that. I had to go through, I had to burn all of the boxes. I had to get in there with my sander, really rough grit, get all of that carbonized layer off, dust it all out, get the oil on, a few coats of oil, and then it will last pretty much indefinitely. If we go back to that one over there, then you can see where the oil started to degrade a tiny bit, and the sun's bleaching it a little bit, but nowhere near as much as the ones next to it where it just gets bleached completely. But if you, if you kind of look in that way there, Zane, I'll pop around here. I just love the finish on this hide. I love the way that it brings out all of that grain, and as you can see, the different layers of carbonization here. So that top one got really, really burnt. It's very, very black. And then this one here is just starting to pull down, pull a little bit of that color out, but I quite like it all the same. So, Shusugi Ban, it's not for everyone. This one here really has stood the test of time. I'll give you some regular updates. Maybe it's for you. If not, just leave them in the wild and the cedar turns a beautiful gray.
