Most hives are painted white but they can be any light color you like. Here's ours;











The only rule on painting your hives different colors is to not pain them dark colors because darker colors absorb more heat than ligher ones do. Lighter colors reflect heat so the hive stays cooler during hot summer days. It's pretty much the same rule that applys to painting your house.

Different colors also help the bees find their home and prevents drifting, which is where bees belonging in one hive go to another hive instead of their own.

Are you going to take pictures of the process? I would love to see it...

Me too! Margaret, does the color of the hive boxes have any meaning in either function or type?

Robin I would love to video tape the process but DH won't let me near the hives when he's working them. I'm planning to ask my neighbor lady if she can get me one when she gets back from FL.

Jamie the only thing the colors have to do with beekeeping is to reflect light the way you would choose paint for your house. The only rule is do not use dark colors like black, navy or dark brown because those colors absorb heat and are also the colors of the honey bees predators...bears, raccoons and skunks to name a few.

The solid white one is one of our first hives and all the other hives are swarms from the first two hives. DH just loves bright and colorful so he's painting the supers whatever color he takes a notion. The newest color is royal blue and hasn't been set on the hives yet.

I like the colors, just thought they might have specific meaning otherwise. You know...I LOVE the title on this thread!

It may be a typo that the "i" is capped...but how many ways can you refer to ...

HI (like hello)
H I've (like I have hives)
contraction = HI've ( Hi, I have hives!)

it's just so cute, makes ya' think!

Now...what would it bee if bee got added...??...OR jest "b"

Like bH'ive? (oh Jamie behave!)

Jamie if I didn't love you and your quirky sense of humor I'd smack you one.

I was tired when I opened this thread but since you like it so well I'm going to leave it like it is. At least it's spelled correctly even if it's capitalized wrong.

I think you autta' keep it! ...and do something with the 'b' thang...really, one of my degrees is in marketing...you'll be selling someday right? Thinking logo development! LOVE it! Don't change it, expand it...run a contest! Now smack me twice

I'm working on a label for the honey jars.
As for selling online....right now we can't keep up with local sales here in town and one man informed hubby this morning he wants to buy all he sells because he eats a lot of honey. Between him and our neighbor we'd be lucky to keep any for me.

So, a hive also produces extra queens that swarm out and make a hive of their own? Do you keep empty hives around for them to move into?

Correct you can tell when they are going to swarm during a check of the hive and see queen cells which are along the bottom of the frames and larger than either drone or worker cells.

We tried an empty hive this spring and while they checked it out none of the swarms were interested in moving into it. So he tries to catch them right after they swarm from the hive since they usually only go a few feet away first until they decide which new home to head for. Plus, the queen can't fly very far at a time since she usually doesn't do any flying after her mating flights. We keep shrubs about 3 feet away from the hives for them to land on and we also have fence posts they sometimes land on.

There is also a way of increasing your hives by doing what's called "splitting" them. This is done when as Mindy has described, the bees are making queen cells & you see the hive has an extraordinarily large population of bees. You can order young queens. They come in a small wooden box which has screen so she gets air etc... there is a hole at one end which is filled with "candy". When it arrives there is a cover over the candy which you later remove so the candy is exposed. You open the "overcrowded" hive & remove some of the brood frames & put them in a super along with some filled honey frames & some empty frames. Then you place that super on top of several layers of newspaper on top of the overcrowded hive & place the new queen in her cage in the "new" super. Then you put the hive cover back on. The bees from the bottom, overcrowded hive will eat through the newspaper to get into the uppermost "new" super where they find the new queen in her cage. At this point, if the new queen were loose the bees might kill her as an intruder or she & the "old" queen would fight to the death if you didn't have a queen excluder on the brood section of the older, established hive. When you have enough bees in the new super then you take it off the original hive & move it to it's own location. Now you will take the protective cover off the candy filled hole. The bees in the "new" hive will eat out the candy & release the new queen who by now they have had time to accept & get used to. Viola' --- new hive.

Interesting Ann! Do you H'ives too? Margaret do you have some 'progress' news?

First: A GREAT BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARGARET!

No Jamie, no hives at the moment. Used to be beekeepers & also grew up with daddy always having a few hives in the yard.

Thanks Ann.

Right now the bees are eating the extra honey we left to get them through our drought period and in some hives whatever honey they make. We went through a month long drought and still not getting enough rain but it is raining more than it has been. Goldenrod is already blooming this year about a month earlier than last year so I expect some of the hives to have extra while the others will likely store enough for winter. We are currently watching them in case we need to supplement their stores with sugar syrup.

I wonder if the Goldenrod blooming a month early signals an early winter?

That's what I'm wondering. It's been rumored we will skip fall and head straight into winter here.

Have you checked the Farmer's Almanac?

i'm pretty sure from my plant confusion that the winter will be early but not harsh. Things are out of order but the berry trees, grapes and oaks did not produce anywhere near last season nor do they look like they will. They know best and so that says the wildlife will be okay without lots and lots of food. Talking to them, I expect an early frost but somewhat mild and short winter this year.

Online Farmaer's Almanac says September and October will be cooler and drier than normal for us. Haven't seen the new predictions yet but getting the book is on my list this week.