In this instructional video, Laurence Edwards demonstrates how to apply the traditional Japanese wood preservation method shou sugi ban to Western red cedar beehives. He begins by assembling and lightly sanding the glued cedar boxes, then uses a heavy‑duty propane blowtorch to carbonize the top 2–3 mm of the wood, aiming for a crackled, alligator‑skin surface without igniting the wood. After achieving the desired char, he brushes off the carbon layer with a wire brush, follows with 240‑grit sanding to smooth the grain and remove residual dust, and finally applies a thin coat of exterior‑grade UV‑protective oil (Osmo) to seal and enhance the color. Throughout, Edwards offers practical tips on torch selection, safety measures (working on gravel, using water to control flare‑ups), and the dual benefits of the technique: improved resistance to water ingress and insect damage, plus an aesthetically striking finish suitable for beehives.
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Burn, brush, sand, oil. The Japanese wood preservation technique shou sugi ban has turned this beehive into a masterpiece. In this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to prepare a western red cedar beehive just like this. So the idea behind this technique is that it's a very cheap and cost-effective method for treating your cedar boxes to reduce the amount of water ingress and make it less susceptible to insect damage. There is a wonderful side effect to all of that though. It makes the beehives look incredible. So the first thing that I've done is I've glued together my Western red cedar beehives. I sanded them down using 120 grit just to get rid of any of the glue. And what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna blowtorch them with this heavy-duty blowtorch. And the idea is that you wanna carbonize the top 2 to 3 millimeters, and then we're gonna brush all of that off to reveal a really lovely texture underneath. This looks drastic, this looks like overkill, but once you take that carbonized layer off, you reveal a beautiful finish underneath. Let's get going and let's get this torch blazing. Now, if you take a look at the wood now, it looks like it's done. But with shou sugi ban, you need to go a lot more than that. We're not just looking to give it a little bit of a colour, give it a zebra or a tiger stripe like this. We're looking to genuinely burn the top 2 to 3 millimetres, and you need to keep on going until you start to see the wood crackle on the top. Looks a little bit like an alligator skin, and it really does look like you've gone too far. So the idea is to basically get it as close to setting fire as you can without setting fire. And if you look at that there, you'll see that it just starts to catch, and then the second that I take the flame off, it stops. This here is perfect. So you can see what I mean there. You've got the alligator skin all the way across that top box now. Looks like I've taken it too far, but we'll scratch all of that off with a wire brush in a little bit. This is exactly how you want to get your boxes for the first stage of shou sugi ban, which is to burn and carbonize that top 2 to 3 millimeters. So I'll continue now all the way around all 4 sides. We'll finish off with the roof and then we'll move on to the brushing. Now if you've only got a blowtorch like this, you can use a blowtorch like this or even a smaller one, but it takes much, much longer and it doesn't give you quite as even a finish as the big propane torches. I'll do a little bit of this side here to show you what I mean. It comes out a little bit patchy. It does take longer, and I'll finish it off with the propane torch. So one completely charred beehive. Fully carbonized on the surface. Tiny little bit too much in that corner there. I put it on the pallet to keep it off the grass, but ideally you wanna put it on like some gravel so you've not got anything combustible underneath it. That one's still smoking away. Spray some water on it if it's going out of control. This one here is absolutely fine. So the next step for this now is to take a wire brush, work it with the grain, take off that carbonized layer to reveal a beautiful charred grain underneath. So what you can see there is what it looks like once it's half complete. That half there's been wire brushed, and then as we come closer this way, you can see the alligator skin. It looks terrible, doesn't it? It looks like you've gone too far, but as you can see, as soon as you get the brush onto it, it comes out really, really nice. So the next step is to get some 240-grit sandpaper and work all over the grain to get rid of any of that remaining dust that's on there and to bring out a really, really nice finish. Now here you want to be working again with the grain, 240-grit. You don't need anything coarser than that, you don't need anything finer than that. 240 grit's really good, but just make sure you're working it with the grain of the wood. So you can see the difference there. That half is the half that I've sanded with 240 grit, and if you come over to this end here, you can see you've still got some of that carbon just in between the grains there. Now you can keep a little bit of that in if you like. I prefer to sand it right back out so the oil can penetrate really well in the next step. So really starting to come together now. Perfectly smooth finish. We brushed out all of that carbon, raised the grain a little bit there so you can see it, but it's really, really Really nice to finish now. Now you could leave it like that, but I'm going to oil it. I think it really brings out the color nicely and finishes it off and gives it all-round excellent protection if you finish it with an oil. Now the standard treatment here is like a linseed oil, a boiled linseed oil, but you can use pretty much any treatment that you want, any exterior-grade oil that's normally used for wood that's good for bees. In this case, I'm using a UV protection oil with a very light sheen from Osmo Oil. I'm a massive, massive fan of Osmo Oil, used it all throughout my house. Once this is down, it is completely child safe. which means it's also perfectly good for a beehive. So we're only gonna go for a single layer of this, so make sure you get a nice thin even coat on there. As you can see, really brings out the color, but you don't want any runs at all. This Osmo that I'm using here is a UV protection oil, but it's ever so slightly tinted as well, so it's just bringing that color just up a notch. And apparently the tint provides additional UV protection as well, so this is gonna be completely bombproof once it's finished. So there we go, the technique is finished. I've got my oil on there and it's drying away now in the sun. The oil that I've used will dry in about 24 hours and it will take that shiny effect off, but I think you'll agree it looks really, really nice. A spectacular technique for a spectacular beehive.
