Painting beehives
As our number of beehives has increased, so has their impact on our garden where they sit. Originally I had painted them all with special silver bee paint (thermo-porous & insulating) bought at great expense at our nearest bee supplies shop, but as more appeared in the garden they started to stand out, looking out of place in their somewhat wild surroundings. Searching for photos when starting up this site reminded me just how great a line of multi-coloured hives could look and I started thinking about changing ours.
At the same time I started to wonder how bees found their way back to the right hive? Looking through the books and on the net, it soon became clear that bees need some visual stimuli to help them find their own hive and we weren’t helping them with a line of identical silver boxes. A puff of wind (and we do get a lot of wind at times) and they could easily be blown from their own hive entrance to the one next door with potentially disastrous consequences – this phenomenon is known as drifting.
So, I’ve bitten the bullet and started to paint some of ours. I’ve only done the front side as they were done in situ and I’ll do the other faces when things get quieter (and maybe the girls can help me!). Here are the before and after photos – how do you think they look?
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Did you paint the hives with the bees in occupancy? Do you have any tips for this?
It’s probably not ideal but yes I did paint them with the bees in situ. I waited until a cool evening, hoping that the majority of foragers would have returned before I started. I had already cut a piece of wood slightly narrower than the width of the hive that would just slot across the entrance to prevent any bees coming or going, so slotted this in place and quickly painted the front. I then prised this wood off with my hive tool and let the bees back in and out. A couple did explore upwards so I stood by and wafted these off before they walked into the wet paint but the hive was quiet as it was cool and dark. I have now painted all my spares so that I won’t need to do this again but it worked fine, just a bit hot with the kit on!
Are you planning to paint yours?