Scientifically, color is what we perceive it to be – and therefore we do need light for there to be color. This link goes over it a bit. It also mentions quantum mechanics which requires our perception of things for them to exist as the do – therefore, when we’re not observing them, they are different than when we are. Both would require light in order for our perception of color, and for color of a particular thing to exist.
As to bees, that’s wicked cool – I didn’t know. But our perception is limited to what we call visible light, which is just how we convert certain bandwiths of radiation into a meaningful concept. Above the visible spectrum is ultraviolet, and below that is infrared. So if bees’ eyes are designed in such a way that those bandwiths are visible to them (just as we have machines that can convert them into colors that are perceivable to us) then they would exist as different “colors” that we can’t see. It’s much the same as hearing tones of a different frequency – dogs can hear tones above what we can, and we still call them tones but they’re not convertible in a way we can understand given our ear structure. We know that these forms of radiation and these sound frequencies exist, however, because we have developed auxiliary tools to allow us to perceive them in ways we can understand.
Of course, philosophy will have a whole bunch of different answers, based on how the particular school of thought considers whether there is an essence of the thing or concept outside of perception, or an ideal of it outside of what we see every day.