The Jimi Hive...

So I was listening to a Commercial Beekeeping Old Timer and he was talking about how he paints a contrasting stripe on the front of his hive to help foraging bees find their hive when they return. The contrasting stripe is used by the bees as a "landmark". The Old Timer I was listening says he's been doing it for years.

I figured I'd do something similar, and pay tribute to one of my favorite music artists of all time. Introducing my "Jimi Hive".

I made a stencil based on a pretty famous photo of Jimi, and spray painted it in purple (of course) on the front of this year's hive. My bees get here in less than 2 weeks (April 16th), and I'm putting the final touches on everything.

To make the stencil, I finally broke down and bought a machine that I've been eyeballing for a long time.  It's called a Silhouette SD.

It hooks up to your computer just like a printer, but instead of ink it has a little exacto knife in there.  You can put paper, vinyl, or sticker material in there, and it will cut out a pattern for you.  It comes with quite a few patterns, but I went straight for the custom Jimi Hendrix graphic.  I've been wanting to paint this image on an old acoustic guitar I've had for a long time... thought I'd try it out on the bee hive first.

What do you think?

Ron