If you care about the Earth and its living creatures, you might be thinking of simple ways to make a haven for animals and insects in your garden.
Have you thought about all the busy bees you have likely seen near your swimming pool or feeding on the bounty of your flowers?
Bees are loyal pollinators that will return your love by keeping your garden thriving and producing food year after year.
If you want to support and promote bees, an easy way to accomplish this is to put out a water station to provide an accessible source of water.
Read on for a guide on how to make a bee water station.
Do Bees Drink Water?
Whether you want to believe it or not, bees, although insects, require an enormous amount of water all year.
All species of bees will drink water and will have a number of activities using water that is species-specific.
During the heat of the summer months, when suitable water sources are at a premium, it is then even more important to offer a water station.
What Do Bees Use Water For?
Bees drink plenty of water but they also consume and use water for other purposes.
- For instance, in the winter, bees will use water to dissolve crystallized honey.
- They also use water as a “honey thinner,” or a thinner to use on honey that is too thick and laborious.
- They will deposit water droplets along the brood comb, and with their wings, they will fan or agitate the droplet droplets. This fast and intense fanning causes the water droplets to evaporate and helps shed the right temperature to assist in breeding their babies.
What Water Is Suitable for the Bees in My Garden?
- The water you offer must be of sufficient size so it will not evaporate in the heat.
- Water that is too steep may drown the bees; and finally the water must also be for the bees only no livestock, no cats, and no dogs.
- Honey Bees do enjoy a nice cool salt water pool.
Water Is One of the Four Crucial Things Bees Collect
Depending on what the hive needs, bees collect:
- nectar
- pollen
- propolis
- or water
The bees collect pollen and propolis by carrying it in pollen baskets on their hind legs, and they carry water and nectar internally, in the crop.
Almost always, a bee will collect the same item all day, transferring back and forth between the hive and the collection place.
Once a water collecting bee deposits its load of water with a house bee, it returns to the same source and fills its crop once again.
However, sometimes a forager cannot find a house bee to accept its load of water.
If that happens, it knows the colony now has enough water and it can forage for something else.
Like Butterflies, Bees Do Mud Puddle!
Bees tend to select water sources that we might find disgusting!
They may select puddles or dirty water in slimy flower pots, muddy mole holes or piles of wet leaves!
Furthermore, these busy bees are also attracted to the smell of salt and chlorine (common additives to swimming pools) even though most people would prefer to provide their bees with sparkly clean water.
It only makes sense, if you’re interested in pollinators, to provide them with clean sparkling water on your patio because bees are unlikely to visit that water source.
Want to know more about insect mud puddling? Read the article “Do butterflies drink blood?”
How to Make the Ideal Bee Water Station That Bees Will Visit Again and Again
1. Think Like a Bee
To determine the best water sources for bees, it’s helpful to think like a bee!
Even though each bee has five different eyes, they have tuned their eyes to see movement and fluctuations in light levels rather than detail that humans are used to seeing.
Bees are traveling fast and to a great height in which they may miss water sources.
2. Appeal to Their Sense of Smell!
Experts in the field of biology suggest that bees most likely find the majority of their water sources by means of smell, as opposed to sight; that is a water source with a scent will have a higher pull potential.
Water that smells like wet dirt, moss, aquatic plants, worms, decay, and even chlorine will attract a bee much more so than a clean drip of water from the tap.
Water that is smelly or slimy is likely to have nutrients as well!
Bees receive most of their nutrients from nectar and pollen, but some water sources are full of vitamins and micronutrients that will help honey bee nutrition.
3. Safety First for Your Bee Water Station
Another thing that bees really enjoy is having a safe place to stand.
Water from a steep-sided container or flowing quickly can potentially be more dangerous to a bee than no water at all because it can easily drown them.
To address this issue, beekeepers have come up with all kinds of bee watering stations:
- A saucer filled with marbles or stones can also serve as a DIY watering area for bees. A bucket of water with plenty of “bee rafts” also works. These can be corks, sticks, sponges, packing peanuts—anything that floats!
- As a gardener, you may have a hose that has a slow leak or you can take a drippy irrigation head, move it to a convenient location, and allow it to seep into the surrounding ground.
- Alternatively, many gardeners foster bees by using hummingbird feeders filled with water or by putting small ponds filled with lily pads.
- You may have garden related containers but use kitchen pie dishes, cake tin pans, or even frisbees for shallow water for bees.
4. Luring Bees to Your Watering Station
When first establishing a water source, it can help to add chlorine to it:
- A teaspoon of chlorine bleach in a bucket of water is likely enough to attract the bees’ attention.
- Adding some ground oyster shells to a pie dish of water will make the water source smell like the salty ocean, which bees absolutely love.
- Hay is also a possible alternative.
- You could use a weak sugar solution in a bee waterer. When bees find it, they will quickly empty it and then return for more.
When introducing the chlorine, salt, or sugar lures, you can discontinue them after your bees have become accustomed to the water source.
After a few days, your bees will “forget” what was there and simply think of it as water.
Best Practice: Establishing the pattern early is key, as soon as the bees arrive, well before they develop bad habits.
Despite Your Best Efforts Bees May Reject Your Water Station
Honey bees can be stubborn and prefer any water source they want, like your neighbours pet bowl, potted plants, birdbath, or even wet laundry on the line, over your new water station.
Bees are creatures of habits, and when they find sufficient water source, they will come back over and over.
Since getting your bees to switch sources is almost impossible, you might as well create a source for them and wait until some find it (on their own).
Providing Water Will Help Bees When Water Is Scarce
In contrast to humans, bees are capable of traveling very far in the pursuit of the resources it is seeking.
Typically, a colony forages a few miles from home. However, when the bee is stressed or resources are scarce, it may travel five miles to obtain what it needs.
Being able to provide new water sources will reduce the foraging distance for your local bees.
And When They Find Your Water, Bees Will Share the Good News!
The communication system the bees use to communicate the location of resources (the bee dance language) works best for resources at a distance from the hive.
When a resource such as a water source is less than a few feet away, the bee can tell the other bees it is nearby, but it may not be clear how far away.
When the water source is a bit further away, they can communicate a direction. For best results, place the waterer a short flight from the hive (around 100 feet).
Rounding Up
A bee water station is an excellent family project for your garden and soon enough, thirsty bees in your area will welcome it too.
You might even find that your bee water station will attract butterflies and other insects to take advantage of it too during the summer months.
On those hot days, you will love seeing your new community of visitors taking a well-deserved cool drink!