Hive colors

[Moonshae]

How subtle can color differences be before the bees fail to distinguish between them? When I painted my two hives in this past spring, I went with a beige and a grey that were both at the lightest end of the color scale, to keep them as close to white as possible. When my two nucs are ready to be hived in the spring, I'd like to make them different colors, too, but I wonder if I'm going too pale for the bees to even tell the difference. Is there an optimum balance between lightness and color saturation?

[Michael Bush]

The bees are red color blind, but otherwise can distinguish some pretty fine differences.

[Brian D. Bray]

in differentiating between hives, symbols or patterns are more "identifying" than color shades.

[Finsky]

.
Bees do not need coloured hives. They come back to home what ever colour it is.
When you change boxes between hives, colours will be mixed.

Most popular colour is all hives and boxes white.
.

[KONASDAD]

whatever color is in the "oops" bin and an outdoor variety as well. I may start painting in shades of green to camoflage my hives as stealing them is becoming more prevalent and neighbors dont see them as well.

[Brian D. Bray]

whatever color is in the "oops" bin and an outdoor variety as well. I may start painting in shades of green to camoflage my hives as stealing them is becoming more prevalent and neighbors dont see them as well.

Too bad they don't sell a "Mossy Oak" paint.   Try shades of green and brown, just splotch it on--camo!

[reinbeau]

We painted out hives Rhubarb Green from Walmart - it's the best leaf green I've found.

[KONASDAD]

Too bad they don't sell a "Mossy Oak" paint.   Try shades of green and brown, just splotch it on--camo!

thats what i had in mind