My bees love dirty water!!

[KD4MOJ]

My bees love dirty water!! I’ve always heard stories about bees and the neighbor’s pool. Bees looking for the minerals and other stuff that they need in the water. The pool scenario fits me since my next-door neighbor has one. Summer time they are all over the pool, at the ladder with the rust spots on the ladder steps where it meets the vertical tube. Constant complaint from my neighbor about the bees but he is understanding…. I give him lots of honey. He knows I’m trying to corral the bees with the multiple birdbaths in my yard. But the do what they do and you can't change nature, only try...

I do have plenty of birdbaths in the yard and I noticed that the one in full sun is frequented more than any of the other ones. It’s the dirtiest one of all. By that I mean that algae or whatever mass of substance has grown on the side walls (it’s a concrete birdbath) and in the raised center, most of the time exposed to sun with just a smidgen of water covering the center. Pretty nasty lookin’. So I did an experiment.

I put a fresh birdbath (a clone) in the place of the nasty one and the bee’s would land then immediately take off and circle around it. Land again and repeat the process. I then placed the original one a few meters away and a day later, the bees were all over it. The clean one in the original spot remained vacated while the original nasty one was covered in bees again. So my conclusion, is that the nasty one has what they need/like.

Any others experienced this…?


…DOUG
KD4MOJ

[Bee Happy]

I honestly wonder if there's something in chlorine that acts like a locator scent. Rather - they seem unphased by pool shocker and chlorine and baking soda tabs if they're already using the pool for water.
I remember reading in one bee book or another that they are completely ok with sucking water out of any old mud puddle.
I re-read your post and I think they put some kind of marking scent around the source - most likely not IN the water - but I remember noting near dripping water hoses that I could "smell bees" there.

[T Beek]

You bet!  "they are the only experts"

We don't have many pools around, just lots of lakes, ponds, creeks and a few rivers.

Our back yard is a 7-8 acre pond, full of leeches, 2 families of beaver (and many other critters) and thigh-deep muck, pretty nasty, but likely FULL of nutrients along with all that muck.  

When we first got bees we gave them fresh water daily, which they pretty much ignored in favor of pond diving and the water containers used for our goats and horse.  When the lilly pads start blooming we'll take out the canoe, its a great time to 'water-spot' bees laping up water from the edge of the pads and then gather some nectur befor heading back, good times :)

With that said, in Spring I've had them ignore the dry pollen I've placed out in favor of rolling around in the cat-litter that's been spread around the garden perimeter :shock:.  

"they know what they are looking for"

thomas

[greenbtree]

Same here - made a bee waterer, have a few other clean sources, some from tap, some from rain water, and it's the muddy frog pond/puddle that the horses stomp through and stir up that they like.  Sometimes the horse trough.  Luckily my horses aren't freaked easily and they and the bees co-exist pretty well.

JC

[Michael Bush]

I have buckets to water them, full of sticks.  I dump them out once a week, not to keep it clean, but to kill the mosquito larvae...

[BjornBee]

I have a large rubber sheet where I have horse manure and peat moss piled up for use in the garden. After a heavy rain, there are always a few puddles on the edges, and the stuff near the edges are even being soaked by the excess water. The bees go after these areas and pools until they dry up. they are also areas that many type butterflies visit...sometimes in the hundreds.

They have a pool. a pond, and a cold running spring stream, all within 100 yards of the apiary at the house. but they love the water filtered through the manure..... :-D

[sterling]

I haven't tried it but one of the speakers at our last bee club meeting said he put mineral salt blocks in his water buckets to attract the bees and it help keep his bees out of swimming pools.

[Jim134]

But they love the water filtered through the manure..... :-D

 You bet  :-D


    BEE HAPPY Jim 134  :)

[hardwood]

Note to self: Don't buy any honey from Bjorn. :)

Scott

[VolunteerK9]

I have buckets to water them, full of sticks.  I dump them out once a week, not to keep it clean, but to kill the mosquito larvae...

I put guppies in all my buckets (15 gallon muck buckets used to catch rain water). They are great at keeping all the skeeter wigglers out of the water.

[KD4MOJ]

but they love the water filtered through the manure..... :-D

  I bet you sell that "blend" at a steep discount!

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[greenbtree]

Yeah, the guppy idea works - you don't have to get the fancy ones, pet stores often have tanks of "feeder" guppies.  In the north you don't have to worry about escapees going feral somehow -winter will kill them.  Goldfish work too in bigger tanks, just make sure they can't escape into local waterways.  Of course on my place I don't need either - any standing source over a gallon gets tadpoles all summer long, we have lots of tree frogs (In Iowa - who would have thunk...).  I don't know if they eat the mosquito larva directly or out compete them, but I never have larva in with the tadpoles.

JC