Mixing Paint?

[brooksbeefarm]

My brother came to the farm Saturday to help repair and paint bee equipment. He knows i hate to paint and told me to go ahead and do some of my plowing. Well he ran out of dark green paint and i had bought a 5 gallon bucket of oops paint at Lowes that was black and they added a mixture to it to make it dark green, well we painted one deep with it and put it out in the sun to dry. After it dried it looked black with maybe a hint of green, my brother said he thinks if i buy a yellow paint and mix in it it should make it a lighter green?? Anyone know if that will work? Jack

[Jen]

Hi Jack, I'm afraid not my friend. Been to art school and learned about color. It's pretty much impossible to lighted a paint that deep in color. It is completely doable to very gradually darken a lighter color. That is unless you want to bring in a dump truck worth of white, and then it would prob come out a gun metal grey/khaki/army color. Yuk! who would put pretty bees in that color 

What you could do tho, is to buy white paint, or yellow as your bro suggested, and add a very small amount of the dark hue to the white paint until you get a color that you like.

How many hives do you need to paint?

[apisbees]

Like Jen said. Or if you are putting on more than one coat to get a longer lasting finish, paint the hives the dark color for the first coats. Then use a coat of white or whatever color for the last coat.

[brooksbeefarm]

Jen, i'm guilty, my deep hives are a dark green khaki army color , Some of my bee yards are 60 miles from home and in deep wooded areas. Some could be seen from the country gravel roads if they were white, but buy painting them army green they are almost invisible unless you know where they are. The 5 gal. bucket of black Valspar (sp?) paint ($35.00) would work in the woods, but i'm thinking it would absorb to much heat in the summer. The hives are in clearings in the woods and facing either east or south. Jack

[Zulu]

Buy another oops in a light color and mix small batches .... all my painted hives are painted in ooops paint... the others are varnished

[Jen]

Brook ""Jen, i'm guilty, my deep hives are a dark green khaki army color""

HA! I knew I would get challenged on the dark green khaki army color thing! Too Funny! But you know what? I remember reading the post about hive robbing. So I understand that if you have hives deep in the woods that is a great idea to let them blend with the scenery! Good Call