Bees and depth perception???

[Moots]

Simon,
Now I'm following what you're saying....thanks so much for taking the time to take the photos and explain.  :)

I've been busy and we've had a couple days of rainy/ugly weather...So I really hadn't had much of a chance to observe if my modification is having much affect.  I'll post a followup later....

[123_Bee]

I have seen some people use a short piece of plank or ply wood to act as a makeshift landing ramp too.  I have tried to demonstrate both these ideas in photo C (substituting wooden blocks for bricks in this case, but the light wooden blocks probablty wouldn't be heavy enough to stay put for long).  A couple of tacks through the ply into the bottom board would be a good idea too.

(I haven't made enough posts for forum software to let me link your image)

I haven't tested to see if the bees get less lost if the hive is a colour other than white.  I'll ask around , it would be interesting to know if a darker colour helps with their landing approach.

I use ply landing boards, each one has a different pattern painted on it. I used left over paint, so nothing fancy. One has a stripe leading up to the entrance, another has four dots on it .. and so on. The landing board stays with the colony.

[Simon]

123_Bee, I reckon that it's pretty good thinking painting your landing boards with different patterns etc.

I watched a video a while ago (Youtube I think) about bumble bee hives and the guy presenting had added a white front to his hives with a yellow circle or square painted around the entrances.  He said the contrasting entrances helped the bumble bee queens to find their way in.  There must be something to his suggestions at least with bumble bees as he seemed to have a fair bit of success getting bumble bees to move in to his hives.

I expect that bumble bee sight is pretty similar to that of honey bees so I'm now thinking of adding some yellow paint to some swarm traps too.  Thanks for the hint.  :)

[123_Bee]

I did think of painting the entrances, or a pattern near the entrances, then realised giving clean boxes in the spring with different patterns could confuse them, more especially if I a colony's old box was cleaned out and re-used within the same apiary (bee yard?).

So all my boxes are the same, the patterned landing board stays with the colony.

There was research about how bees see colours, but I can't recall who did it.