painting apidea's boxe's

[keith pierce]

i want to paint my apideas boxes a host of different coloures and woundering what you would recommend.i have several half cans of differenet colours gloss paint in the garage and was going to use these. i look at coupernal wood shades and they were a bit pricy at €11 for a 500ml tin

 

[oliver90owner]

Red, yellow, green, blue.
The red one would be useful for you to recognise, but would not help the bees.

Hope that helps - but I am a little doubtful on that score!

Regards, RAB

 

[RoofTops]

Any old gloss paint will work providing it isn't cellulose. You might like to paint the roofs a different colour to the bodies as the contrast will help. Some people also paint stripes, squares etc. on them. Think seaside beach hut and you won't go far wrong.

 

[Poly Hive]

This sort of thing, painted by the man who wrote the book on it.

PH

 

[drstitson]

homebase do decent sized tester pots of their exterior masonry paint. just the ticket for a few mating nucs.

 

[Midland Beek]

Red, yellow, green, blue.
The red one would be useful for you to recognise, but would not help the bees.

Hope that helps - but I am a little doubtful on that score!

Regards, RAB

The four bee colours are black, yellow, blue and white. See Von Frisch.

If you stick to the four bee colours you could arrange them in groups of four. Any more than four, make the arrangement of the colours differnt.

 

[keith pierce]

thanks

 

[SixFooter]

Red, yellow, green, blue.
The red one would be useful for you to recognise, but would not help the bees.Regards, RAB

Would the bees not just see the red one as black and therefore be able to recognise this as well?

 

[Haughton Honey]

I would suggest that different shapes painted on the apideas, rather than different colours, might be more beneficial?