[EvaH (OP)]

Blake asks:

I’m trying to figure something out here - there’s this monastery in Greece near Athens where a bee keeper puts photos, primarily of religious icons, in the bee boxes and the bees don’t form a comb over the picture all the way normally. And I’m just wondering if it’s because of the pigments/ink/oil or whatever is in the paints or not.

What do you think?

[alancalverd]

Bees can spot a poisonous fraud like religion, and avoid it.  Or, if you want a more prosaic interpretation, the surface of a photograph is not a suitable base for a honeycomb. The preference is generally for a rigid, porous surface.

Bees have an acute sense of smell and taste and probably dislike photographic chemicals. If it ain't wood, stone or nectar, why bother with it? Would you store your food and raise your children on a sheet of paper covered with potential toxins?

[RD]

... Bees have an acute sense of smell and taste and probably dislike photographic chemicals...

Apparently ants/spiders/mites don't like the fumes from ink, e.g. ...

[Colin2B]

in the bee boxes and the bees don’t form a comb over the picture all the way normally.

I assume the pictures are vertical.
Bees prefer to build comb hanging down so they can get cells on both sides. Building out from a smooth surface is harder than hanging down from a rough surface above eg tree branch or inside of a trunk. You will often see swarms building comb from a branch, but here the weather usually forces them to move on.
If they have already built some comb in the hive, it is possible they will build brace comb - stabilising comb - between that and nearby vertical surfaces, if the space is over 9mm. The 9mm space is known as ‘bee space’ and is that which an average bee can comfortably crawl and work in, anything larger they will try to fill in.

Apparently ants/spiders/mites don't like the fumes from ink, e.g. ...

You can do same with chalk line. Possibly to do with feel on feet?