Water Sources

[rober]

  What attracts bees to particular sources of water? I have water seeping from a ravine the the bees go to. I have put out pans of water that they completely ignore. Now they are going to my neighbors bird bath. I put out some more pans & asked my neighbor not to fill her bird bath for a couple of weeks to try to break the bee's routine. She was very understanding & cooperative. All of the water i'm offering has rocks & floating sticks in it.

[Terrex]

Mine seemed to like that buckets of water that I have in the shade...cool, gives them a chance to fly out to it...I just assumed that they were also having a cleansing flight while on the job.

Teresa 

[SerenaSYH]

Rober what material are the pans made of?

Aluminum is extremely dis-tasteful to many creatures....

Even I can't stand the taste of aluminum...Maybe I'm more animal than human, lol! I can always taste if something has been canned and I refuse to drink pop from a can as well.

[AliciaH]

I have been wondering if bees seem to prefer water that circulates.  That covers streams, ravines, hot tubs, pools.  I wonder if your neighbor was good about refilling the bird bath every day?

I, too, have put out buckets (with floating wood and such in it) only to have the bees ignore it, but I didn't refill it and make it "fresh" every day.

Just a theory.

[AllenF]

It is going to be hard for you to make up the mind of 60,000 women to get them to go where you want them to drink from.   You can only provide water and hope they go for it.   You are not going to force them.

[Kathyp]

mine go for the mud around the horse trough.  they also like the shallow water on the overturned water trough.  neither are moving water sources.  both are shallow.  they can sit on the ribs of the overturned trough and drink from the depressions.  the water around the full trough probably has salt in it from the salt block that gets washed down in the rain.

[L Daxon]

Can you put out a birdbath or two of your own?

I live on a very small lake so I don't worry about the girls getting water.  But I still see them at my birdbath every once in a while.

Linda D

[Buzzen]

I put a 5 gallon bucket mostly filled with rocks and a screen from the rim down below water level.  Had so many bees there at one time I had to add a few sticks.  Its about 20 feet from the hive and I haven't dumped it in 2 weeks. they are on it every day. Maybe I'm lucky.

[rober]

I'm trying several different types of containers & sources. I have a ravine that i've filled in with brush & topped off with sawmill shavings & leaves. after a rain water will seep from it for weeks. the bees have been using that all along. i just dug out a small pool there & put some rocks in it.  i have 1 old granite ceramic wash pan & 2 of the plastic pans that you put under flower pots. I also have a bird bath but it is in the front yard. the neighbor's bird bath is plastic & she had rocks in it for the birds to sit on. we know the bees liked it. what i am now concerned about is 1 neighbor has a slip-n-slide sitting out with water standing on it. a couple of kids get stung & mobs with torches will be at my door. i have 3 hives sitting on a raised platform. i put 1 pan  right under the platform & a few have started using that.

[AllenF]

Maybe it is time to have some fun.   Go rent some heavy equipment and dig out that ravine.  Wouldn't a catfish pond be nice?

[rober]

I'm negotiating with the guy behind me. We're talking about trading my labor to restore his rental house for the 3/4 acre he owns directly behind me. my land slopes & drains into that ravine. There is a swale (sp.?) draining from the neighbors into the same vicinity. if i get that piece of dirt there will definitely be a pond in the works!!!
As far as the bees. the pan with the sticks under the hives had several drowned bees. i replaced the sticks with rocks. from what i saw at the neighbors bird bath the rocks worked pretty good. every rock was full of bees. I'm hoping that new workers will be in the field before my neighbor starts using her birdbath again in 2 weeks so the pattern will be broken.

[tandemrx]

I have a nice big chicken water feeder near the hives that I refresh when needed and put sticks in the trough portion of the water feeder.  They do use it, but they seem to prefer to fly about 200 yards thru or over a very large stand of pines to get water that sits in an overturned hubcap that sits under a downspout from a shed.  :? :? :?  Go figure.

Luckily the farmer who owns the land and the shed likes the bees so he throws water in the hubcap during dry periods.  Even if it has been standing there for a while, they still seem to prefer this crazy spot over the chicken feeders.

They throw me off all the time.

[Shanevrr]

is there anything you can do for mosqitos larva without harming bees, the bucket had thousands swimming around

[AllenF]

Dump the water out every week.   

[Michael Bush]

>What attracts bees to particular sources of water?

•   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 be-cause 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.

[ncsteeler]

controversy alert.....  Mosquito dunks will keep them out of your bucket. A standard five gallon bucket only require about an 1/8th of a dunk. I have used them for two years with out problems. A little research told me that many times mosquitos have learned to adapt to us defeating them and many have reduced hatch times to just a few days, so dumping once a week will help but not necessarily be a cure.

Also I find that spraying water around your preferable source each day for a while helps them find it.

[Tommyt]

I had to look that up ??
never heard of them

Tommyt

ncsteeler

Mosquito dunks will keep them out of your bucket. A standard five gallon bucket only require about an 1/8th of a dunk.

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[rober]

when I inspect my hives usually a small of burr comb gets knocked loose. Do you think that putting that burr comb near my water would help draw the bees to it?

[Brian D. Bray]

when I inspect my hives usually a small of burr comb gets knocked loose. Do you think that putting that burr comb near my water would help draw the bees to it?

No, once burr comb is removed from the hive and any nectar/honey it contained removed it is useless to the bees, they will ignore it. 
I have the following sources of water available to my bees;  Lake 1/2 mile away, stream through property (from lake), water troughs for sheep, waters for chickens, bird bathes, rain barrels used for cisterns for watering animals, seep spots that fill with water after rains.  The bees use all of these to some extent in the order given. 

[cowboygourmet]

 i tried some aluminum pans many years ago and the bees ignored them.  Now I know that aluminun is not healthy for humans and I guess the bees have the common sense to know its not good fo them eiher.  Fortunately, now our bees are withen 50 feet of a 2 acre pond so that water is not an issue now.