My backyard bee hives are each painted with different colors and designs to benefit both me and the bees. It’s easier for me to take notes and identify based on the hive color – and they act as garden art, too! Honey bees can see color and identify basic shapes, so keeping each hive different helps minimize bees drifting between hives. Blue was my first hive, then purple. Yellow joined in the third year, and green came next!
I have a few hives in a friend’s backyard and they painted one to look like a colorful soccer ball. For my larger apiary, I keep it simple with dark green, but paint white shapes on the front of the hives so the bees can tell which is the right home.
There are a few different races of the western honey bee; the majority of my hives are Italian. Generally speaking, my hives are usually gentle and my family and I are able to use our backyard with no problems. Our neighbors are supportive of my bees and they are not a nuisance!
Honey bees forage a few miles around their hives, so my bees have a variety of options in the many forest preserves in our area. We also live very close to the Morton Arboretum, where there are plenty of resources in trees and flowers as well.
