I have learned that if it is at all possible someone is going to fall into something and drown. Right now my girls are taking in a lot of water. To stop the drowning I have filled a pie tin with large gravel tightly packed so no one can fall in but they can still reach the water. (Poland Springs.) Because the water doesn't flow I change it every couple of days and flavor it with anise seeds or some lemon grass. They seem to like this just fine.
I fill a five gallon bucket with sticks. The sticks are about as long as the bucket is tall. Then I fill the bucket with water. The bees crawl down the sticks to the water. I have to change the water once a week to keep the mosquitoes out. But hardly a drowned bee.
We use anything that can hold water and put cork boards inside to float on top.
I was hoping for some comments on my flavoring the water, sort of making them a tea. I used the ingrediants I listed because people have said they have used them to flavor sugar water. I'd like to know what other flavors they may like and would actually be benitical. Should I give them camomile tea?
They like really nasty water so making the water nice isn't necessarily going to appeal to them. I made a lovely water source for mine and they much prefer drinking from my clogged gutter or from old mosquito water pooled in the top of a poorly draining flower pot.
Linda T in Atlanta