My Bees ran a couple of kids out of neighbors swimming pool today. Good reason too went over and looked they were everywhere. Must have been a couple of dozen bees flying, landing on floats, floating in the water.
Went and looked and the bird bath 10 feet from the hives was completely full, just filled it this morning.
I got an idea and dumped out the bird bath, got a pitcher filled it up with water from the pool, and poured it in the bird bath. Went and got a glass filled with 1:1 sugar water and added it to the bird bath.
With in 45 min, not a single bee at the swimming pool. :piano:
My plan is to do this for next few days and see if I can dissuade the bees from "skinny dipping" in the pool next door.
Sounds like a great idea. Do birds still come to the birdbath?
...I've suggested to others to try a bit of bleach in the water to bait them away...but to take the pool water...brilliant!
deknow
Good thinking there for sure.
Well after a couple of weeks doing this. It seems to have cured my bees from going to the pool. Every once in a while I see one at it, but they don't stay.
First couple of days I had a terrible time with ants in my bird bath, but once I put cinnamon around the bottom of it they stopped coming. Ants hate cinnamon
Then once I stopped putting the sugar water in the bird bath, didn't have anymore trouble from the ants.
Sound like you're on the right track. Just to recap the issues though...
You always need your water to be more attractive than the pool or the neighbor's hot tub. To accomplish this you need to understand that bees are attracted to water because of several things:
• Smell. They can recruit bees to a source that has odor. Chlorine has odor. So does sewage.
• Warmth. Warm water can be taken on even moderately chilly days. Cold water cannot because when the bees get chilled they can't fly home.
• Reliability. Bees prefer a reliable source.
• Accessibility. Bees need to be able to get to the water without falling in. A horse tank or bucket with no floats does not work well. A creek bank provides such access as they can land on the bank and walk up to the water. A barrel or bucket does not unless you provide ladders or floats or both. I use a bucket of water full of old sticks. The bees can land on the stick and climb down to the water.
I have a small fountain statuary on my rear patio. If the fountain pump is running the bees come to it.
As soon as it stops,they ignore it. Turn it back on and it's almost an instant attraction.
Now the garden pond with plants to crawl on is always busy.
My bees ignore the bird bath I put by their hive. They love the one in my yard but only when its scummy and green around the outside.
New water seems to disinterest the bees. Must be as it has no odor that bees can navigate to & its not warmed up yet. I end up just topin off olde scummy water instead of supposedly doing bees a favor by cleaning water jars w/ sticks.
Thanks bossqwjw & Michael again for your astute observations.