Bees 'collecting' from growbag!

[BillyGoat]

Hi All,

Here's one that's thrown me.
My garden hive have been out foraging for the last couple of days as we have lovely sunny days here in Kent.
They have become very intersted in a disused growbag left over from last years tomato crop.
Seem to be 'feeding' off the soil in the growbag.
It's very damp, so wondering if they are collecting water?
There are lots of other water sources around, so it's a bit odd.

Any one else experienced this?

 

[MrB]

i believe its not uncommon for them to choose a dirty water supply over fresh water.
although as yet, i have no first hand experience of this.

 

[match]

I'm not sure its not something else that they're collecting... we've got a strawberry bed at our apiary, and in the middle of summer you often see a solitary bee sat on the (apparently dry) surface of the soil, licking at it. They'll keep coming back to the same spot, so it must taste good, whatever it is!

 

[SixFooter]

I set up a bucket of water with polystyrene floating on top last year. The bees didn't use it, but I left it there any how and now, they seem to love it. I think they like slightly smelly water, so the growback and the bucket probably meet this requirement.

 

[Poly Hive]

The water in the grow bag is usually warmer than "fresh" and so more interesting to them.

PH

 

[grizzly]

A Section of our garden path is always damp, and the area where the chippings have cleared the bees always plop down and take the moisture from the earth, the good thing about taking water from soil or moss is they dont have to get wet, wont get eaten by fish, and wont drown. Sounds sensible to me.

 

[MrB]

I have just put a little pond in the garden near where the hive is going, guess i need to put a few floating plants in there as boats for the bees!