# Bees can't see the color red ???



## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

I would assume they will still crawl and sting just like they do in the dark if you open a hive. Many animals can't see red lights. Coyotes will stand out in the open 30 feet away and look at you as if they were hidden by the dark.


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

IIRC, some South American beekeepers work at night with red lights.


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## kc in wv (Feb 1, 2006)

*If you tried a UV light you would get a different reaction.*

My wife is a biology teacher and she said that lots of flowers that bee's visit have different colored pigments in their flower petals that are visible under UV. I hope she will show me some day.


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## Aisha (May 2, 2007)

I have seen bees on red flowers, like my bottlebrush tree, so they must also use smell to find flowers. 

I read about someone using a red light at night on this forum before. You might search for the term "red light."

I changed my porch light next to the hive to amber for the same reason.


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## riverrat (Jun 3, 2006)

*von frisch book a great read*

read the book bees their vision chemical sense and language by dr karl von frisch this is the lecture he did at cornell university in the 40's very interesting read goes into what colors bees can see and how he proved it with experiments also goes into the bee dance language and there sence of smell


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## mistergil (May 24, 2007)

I use one of those cheap multicolor LED hat clip on rigs at night with just the red on and the bees don't seem bothered by it, in fact, they seem totally unaware of it. It's great for swapping a boardman out or just having a look at entrance conditions. Karl von Frisch claimed that bees saw red as black in the daylight. If you can get a hold of his old book "The Dancing Bees" - gives a lot of insight into their sight and scent discernment, one of the mfgs. might still sell it, not sure though.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Bees see shades of red as shades of black.

If you think about it, most wildflowers are yellows, whites, and blues. Native red wildflowers are very uncommon in non-tropical areas, except for a few. Of course we see red nowadays due to hybrids and cultivation of desirable colors we want.

Most red flowers in nature are from the tropics. Red is the primary color for hummingbirds, many moth species, and butterflies.

I took part in a feral bee study the last couple years, and the primary colors we put out were white, yellow, light blue and dark blue as attractant colors. Many times the white trap collected more insects then the other colors. The traps caught flies, all sorts of bees, and many other types of flying insects. 

As you drive along the road looking at the native wild flowers, you will see many whites, blues and yellows. If you can imagine over many years, the flowers that all insects could "see" recieved more pollination and were successful in reproducing. Red flowers were not one that could claim this in nature except in tropic areas.


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## kensfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Just read the section last night in "ABC..XYZ".. about the UV markers on flowers.


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## Apuuli (May 17, 2006)

*UV flowers*

Here is a great site for photographs of the UV patterns in flowers. 

http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_flowers_list.html


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Are these patterns a product of reflection of UV light or absorption of UV light? I know they say that the colors, as we see them, are due to the reflection of the frequencies of light that give them the colors we see.


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## Apuuli (May 17, 2006)

It would have to be both. Part of the flower absorbs UV light more and part of the flower reflects it more, hence the pattern. If you could see UV, the areas that reflect UV would be bright, and the areas that did not reflect UV would be dark. I think that the areas in UV photos that are oddly colored (usually near the center of the flower) are areas that have higher reflectance.


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## Slabaugh Apiaries (Jul 16, 2006)

The last few years I have done a lot of feeding and hive moving after dark with a light that you can get at Walmart Super store (sport section) Head ban LED clear or red. Switch back and forth as needed, hands free. I find the bees can smell you but not see you. This worked so well that I would work on other things and do the inner cover feeder inside a deep with the lid on top after dark. On nights that the moon was bright they would see you better then you would think.
You are correct they will still crawl and many times when I get home or on the way home they let you know they are inside areas that you do not want them...if you know where I mean..Ha
DAnny Slabaugh


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## Hillside (Jul 12, 2004)

*Look Out!*

I often go out to look at the hives before I go to bed. I take a small maglight so I don't trip over something. The maglight has kind of an amber color to it. I would expect it has a lot of the red spectrum and not much of the blue end. The bees never paid any attention.

Then I got one of those fancy LED headlamps. I stuck that baby on my head and hoofed out to the hives. This light is very blue looking. Immediately, when I got within about 8 feet of the hives I started having bees fly at the light. Of course, it was stuck right there on my forehead. You can bet I got that thing off my head in a hurry. 

I've gone back to using the maglight.


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## fillmiller (Jun 6, 2005)

Thanks for all the answers. I always thought working on a hive at night was a big no no.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

What I love is all the people who buy the red bee suits, because
they heard or read that "bees can't see red".

Of course bees can see red objects - they look just like
black objects to the bees!

(In daylight, they'll still see you in a red bee suit.)


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## Bizzybee (Jan 29, 2006)

Butterflies have similar uv reactive colors. Sure to bad we can't see the colors with the naked eye!

I have it from a reliable source that bees will in fact work on some full moon lit nights. I have never personally checked it out. But I have no reason to doubt the man that told me of it.

Another beek told me that he only installs his package bees at night. He runs about 500 hives, so handles plenty of them. His biggest reason he explained for preferring a night install, was that he had virtually no drift between hives. That makes perfect sense to me. He also said that he used the red head lamp purchased from Walmart.


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## kc in wv (Feb 1, 2006)

Joseph Clemens said:


> Are these patterns a product of reflection of UV light or absorption of UV light? I know they say that the colors, as we see them, are due to the reflection of the frequencies of light that give them the colors we see.


To expand what Apuuli said and to bore you with science.

In order to see anything, light has to be reflected off of the object. In order for the viewer (the bee or us or whatever are the viewer) to see the light they have to have the receptors for that wave length in their eye. Humans do not have the UV or IR receptors so they cannot see these colors. Another example, deer do not have color receptors, so they only see different shades gray to white light. Absence of light is black, so black does not reflect light. That is the reason that anything black gets hot in the sun. It absorbs all of the light energy and creates heat in the process.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>he only installs his package bees at night

That might work in Georgia. Here in April when I'm installing packages they would freeze if they didn't find their way into a hive that night.


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## CoCa (Jan 24, 2017)

When I shift bees at night in order to see, while preventing them to fly is that I have a big LED light bar on my roof racks facing left/right, set with a timer to come on every 5 seconds for 1 second.
This gives me light every so often, plus keeps the bee's from flying on dark nights.
Not so on full moon situations...


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## awebber96 (May 28, 2012)

Take it from a fool who has gotten tagged in the face while wearing a red LED light at night: your plan is not foolproof.


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## thesecurityeagle (Jun 21, 2016)

Bees have a hard time seeing red. And of course, this data is based on experimentation so we cannot tell the exact degree to which they can see any color. The graph is a comparison of what we can see compared to bees. Notice, we cannot see ultra violet well but bees can. Conversely, bees cant see red well, but we can.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

Joseph Clemens said:


> Are these patterns a product of reflection of UV light or absorption of UV light? I know they say that the colors, as we see them, are due to the reflection of the frequencies of light that give them the colors we see.


In general, from my understanding, it is neither absorption nor reflection. Rather all the shorter wavelength UV, where no critter has vision, is absorbed and light is re-emitted in the near UV, where some critters do have vision, by a process called fluorescence or perhaps by a different electronic pathway called phosphorescence. Look at lots of things under black lights which put out mainly UV and only a tad of blue and you can see a whole variety of colors all the way from blue to red in the visible due to re-emission by fluorescence or phosphorescence. But, there is nothing at all that says re-emission must happen in the visible range. It can also happen in the near UV.


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## flyin-lowe (May 15, 2014)

Funny thing about this. A large scale beek in my area that sells bees, equipment, and everything in between commented recently that he will paint boxes for customers any color except for red because they do not like it.??


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## Dmlehman (May 30, 2015)

When I work in the lab I use a red light. The bees very rarely fly under this circumstance. They still walk around, but it is very helpful because they are easier to corral. Bee traps for field sampling are white, yellow and blue. They tend to be most attracted to blue.


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## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

dcross said:


> IIRC, some South American beekeepers work at night with red lights.


I saw that once.It was some Central or South Americans working africanized bees at night and using red film over their headlights.The bees were very gentle and hardly a bee flew.They said it was the only real way to work them.I cant remember if it was Discovery Channel or youtube or what it was on.It was several years ago.


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