[Kingfisher Apiaries]

Do I need to paint my mating nucs different colors so that the queens when they come back go to the right one? If so, what colors? Can I use arts and crafts paint so I do not need to go and get quarts of different color paint?

Kingfisher

 

[concrete-bees]

it cant hurt - anything to help keep them seperate !!!!

what i did was got a 5 gal bucket of wrong mix at lowes for $25 and it was a light gray -- then take it to your local Hardware store and have them at pigment to each quart of it for you - its cost i think $2 for pigment -

so what i did was take 5 old one gallon empty cans and put the gray paint in it - then took them to the store for a new color !!!!

hope this helps

 

[chillardbee]

The colors I use are white, yellow, green, red, and blue. I take it one step further and use the shapes of a circle, square, triangle, plus sign, and three vertical lines. I also have these painted on my regular hive bodies to prevent the drifting of bees and it works fantastic. My wife made some nice cut out emblems of these shapes and fit perfectly under the handle of each super. we used trim clad spray paint just to put a thin coat on. At some point I'll have pictures.

 

[Merlyn Votaw]

I have another question about cloors I have read several books and articles that tells us to paint the hives different colors so the bees can identify which is which but most of the commerical pictures show all one color. I am confused.Do I go like the commerical keepers or go with the articals?

 

[RayMarler]

I've got 3 colors, just because different colors of miss matched paint cheaper at Home Depot. I've seen videos of some commercial keepers that have all different colored boxes on the trucks. Most don't though.

I think it helps, and patterns help. BTW, bees don't see red, it comes out like black for them, but hey, that makes it different than the hive next to it! I think a lot of keepers paint lighter colors for helping with less heat absorbsion from the hot sun maybe.

 

[Beeslave]

If the bees can pick out differents shapes just use big numbers at the entrance. It would be like their address. All numbers look different and you could use the numbers for your records.