If you have been around beekeepers for any length of time, you have probably noticed that a lot of them have white paint lying around! Why is this? What’s the deal with beekeepers using white paint? If you have ever wondered about these questions please read on 🙂
5 Reasons Beekeepers Like Using White Paint
1. It’s Cheap
White paint it often much cheaper than other paint with pigments in it. Take the white paint below found over at Amazon (click the image to view it over there for yourself). If you choose the exact same paint but with a pigment/ color to it, expect to pay at least 50 percent more for it! This is a massive contributing factor to why beekeepers often choose white paint!
2. It Reflects More Light
Beekeepers don’t only struggle to winter their bees! They also find it hard to keep them cool at the height of the summer, especially in the hotter climates. When you paint a beehive white, it will reflect more light (and therefore heat) away from the beehive. This will contribute significantly to helping bees stay cool in the Summer. Some beekeepers may only paint the top lid of their beehive white for the very same reason.
3. Clean Look
You can’t beat the clean look of white! It is a classic and clean looking color that a lot of beekeepers like.
4. Visibility
Beekeepers often like their beehives to be easy to see against the color of the surrounding landscape. As you won’t find much white in that landscape, by painting your beehives white, they will stand out. No more searching around your apiary for all your beehives if you use white 🙂
5. Versatility
White paint is a classic style of paint that can be used on pretty much anything. You can see people that love anything from white painted kitchens to white fencing. This means that if you have any left over white paint from your apiary, it is easy to use it up on other painting projects. Waste not want not, as they say 🙂
2 Downsides of Painting All Your Beehives White
As you can see above, there are a lot of positives to painting your beehives white. But are there any downsides to doing this? There are only two reasons I can think of personally.
1. Drifting
Firstly, your bees might get confused and not be able to find their way back to their beehive consistently if all of them are white (known as drifting). This is only really an issue if you have a lot of beehives grouped together, and you can help with this by giving the front of each beehive a special pattern.
2. Maintenance
Secondly, white shows dirt quickly, so it might mean you have to clean and/or repaint your beehives more frequently.
