Painting hive bodies and supers...

[Carriage House Farm]

Just a quick question.  I originally was planning on painting my hives plain old white with a number on the lid and a simple, small, black farm logo on the side of the boxes.

Now my sister, who is a fantastically creative woman was suggesting things I could do to the hives.  She had seen links of photos I had sent to her of some of the bee yards and was fascinated by the number of colors some paint them.

So, to quell the number of questions she has been asking me that I cannot answer, besides avoiding dark colors can a have have a pattern on it?  Something artsy?  Like say a white hive with a light green simple quilt pattern painted on the front, or a two tone box with stripes?  Nothing super high contrasting, but light greens and yellows and oranges...pastels almost with a dominate amount of base color.

Maybe start something similar to "quilt" barn designs.

This has got to be the silliest question I have asked, but I figured, what the heck, the different designs could help control drift between colonies.

[Brian D. Bray]

There is nothing wrong with being "Artsy" with your bee hives.  It is a common practice in several parts of the world--eastern Europe for instance.

As long as dark colors are avoided (they draw extra heat to the hive) there is a lot to be said for gay and colorful hives.

[Yarra_Valley]

Over here most beekeepers paint there hives white, and all commercial beekeepers do.  The summers get extremely hot here. They heat up less that way, but really should be in the shade anyway. Studies in Australia have shown hives kept in shade in summer are more productive than those in full sun.  If they are in the shade, as they should be, then the colour shouldn't matter as much. Its a lot cooler working them in the shade too. However, its not always possible to keep them in the shade.

my 2 cents.
James.

[Michael Bush]

If I was buying paint to paint them I'd get white, for all the reasons stated.  But usually I use whatever color I get from the mistints at the paint store or whatever someone has in their garage or basement (including mine).  But mostly I gave up painting about four years ago and after four years of not painting and buying a lot of new equipment I got a tank to dip them.

colors:
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/Stand1.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/EightTenEightHives.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/AssortedWidths.JPG
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/LongHiveSupered.JPG

Dipping:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesdipping.htm

[TwT]

look at this bee hive art

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208663

[Michael Bush]

    "The hives need no painting, although there is no harm in doing it if their owner wants to please his own eye. The bees find their way to their own hives more easily if the hives do not all look alike. I rarely paint mine, and as a result no two are quite alike. Most have the appearance of many years of use and many seasons of exposure to the elements." --Richard Taylor, The Joys of Beekeeping

    "I suppose they would last longer if painted, but hardly enough longer to pay for the paint." --C.C. Miller, Fifty Years Among the Bees

[Carriage House Farm]

look at this bee hive art

beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208663

That's fantastic.  I bet that would be a great thing to do for a class room gig at an elementary school.  Come, do a class on the wonderful world of bees, let the kids paint a couple mediums and then before they graduate to the next grade show 'em with new bees.

[Cindi]

Richard, the sky is the limit.  Paint them any colour (or pictures on the bodies) that you want.  Avoid dark colours, dark colours are ugly colours.  You want bright and cheerfulness when you enter the world of your bees.

Mine are white, and I have symbols painted on them to signify who they are.  Of course, these symbols may change from year to year.  But I love to paint and I don't mind painting among the girls, and they don't mind either.  This is what my apiary looks like a little time ago.  Actually, the end of July.  Looks different now  :) ;) Best of this beautiful and great day.  Cindi

[Moonshae]

My hives have two deeps right now, but I'm planning to switch to 1 deep and two mediums for brood boxes. I think I'm going to paint the solo deeps as identifiers. In my notes, I refer to "Hive 1" and "Hive 2" because in the beginning of the season, it was easy to remember which one I stocked first. Now, with two nucs and thinking differently about the hives (in practical terms, rather than labels), I have to struggle to remember which is which. Painting numbers on them should help me a lot, especially if my expansion plans go well next year.

[Cindi]

I liked my system of painting symbols on the hive.  It allows me to see what is going on.  For example, P1, P2, P3, P4 were the package bees I got, N1, N2, N3, N4 were the nucs that I got.  I can tell at a glimpse what I combined when I had to combine two colonies.  Lot at the picture, N3 and P1 were obviously combined.  I can get very confused with what is what in my apiary, and I am sometimes a dummy.  So having the colonies explicitly numbered allows me to identify everything.  Even when I am speaking of the colonies to observers.  They can also readily see what I am speaking to.  Interesting and works for me very well.  Next year, I think there will be an "S" infront of the splits I do and probably other letters to to depict other things, don't know quite yet what though, have a wonderful and great day in this life.  Cindi