While what goes on inside the beehive is what is really important, not much attention gets paid to the exterior of the hive. Most hive boxes are made of pine and we know that unprotected wood does not fare well with outdoor elements. Beehives can be stained, but most often, they are painted. It seems that bees don't care what color their hive is. Most of the time hive boxes are painted white or whatever color is on sale on the oops shelf at the paint store. My hives are painted the color of my house, a very light cream, because that's the bucket of paint I had in the basement.
Boring!
My daughter-in-law Anne is not only beautiful and smart, she paints. What does she paint? Among other things, wooden cigar boxes! When I asked her if she would like to paint my beehives, she was abuzz with the thought of it. I was thinking of beehive hairdos and other bee motifs, but she started doing research and discovered a website with more tempting images than I have hives. Andrew Gough, a master of esoterica, has studied and documented bees historically through the ages and shares this sweet history at www.andrewgough.com. Here are my hives, newly adorned with ancient beelore.
Hive #1 is graced by a bee hieroglyph design from the ancient Egyptian temple Luxor.
Hive #2 is a colorful graphic rendition of a Minoan gold bee pendant from Crete, circa 2000 BCE. The Minoans were expert beekeepers and taught apiculture to the Greeks. The website has a photo of this gold pendant. Wow!
Hive # 3 sports an ancient Egyptian ideagraph for honey.
Before Anne and daughter Rebecca left town today to return to New Jersey, Anne painted three more boxes that I will add to the hives as the bees need more room to store honey.
I have the most beautiful beehives in town, in Ohio, in the country, maybe in the world! Thank you, Anne!
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