water supply

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I bet they will ignore it and travel that little bit further to get water from a stagnant puddle. We all have our favourite watering holes. !
:ack2:
 
That should be no problem - fill it with water from the stagnant puddle! Anything to get them started on it, rather than neighbours pool or whatever. They will then keep using it.

Regards, RAB
 
We've got the same, and we put it in the dried up ditch where they drank from earlier in the year - they've taken to it nicely. I put a load of old shreddings and dirt in there to make the water suitably vile for them.
 
mine use the pond, i have a board floating in it for them to land on.
 
Having tried buckets with moss and also floaty bits of wood therein, which seem to kill/drown quite a few bees.

This method seems to give them a ready supply of clean water and they don't seem to use it as a method of suicide, as they do the floaty bits of wood (which the use as diving boards into the deadly depths).
 
It is a good idea, and so simple.

I put a washing bowl with oasis in, yesterday I watched bees drinking from an empty icecream carton that had a small puddle of rain water in, a few yards away.
 
My ladies have taken a fancy to diving in our water butt with varying degrees of success. Now there is a sponge wedged in it, most happily use that. Those that dont are unwitting contributers to darwinian improvement (well would have been if gene passing was relevant)
 
Mark 3 version.....water lasts much longer! The earlier one with the sponge dripped away too quickly. This new one is a 20 litre container with a hole cut in the top...oasis is pushed in to the bottom...water gets drawn up the oasis. Seems to do the trick.....I think that is enough faffing about with water containers for a while.
 
I have used a couple of my cats bowls filled with chalk clunch - the clunch absorbs the water and the bees sit on the clunch absorbing the moisture - no drowned bees.
 
There are loads of different water sources around my bees, ponds, troughs etc but they are currently going mad for the water on top of a load of lime mortar we have maturing, I'm sure they know what they are doing but it must be very caustic.
 
Just noticed lots of bees feeding on dried chicken poop? Must be after the minerals.
 
Using Oasis in a container of water has worked so well for me - or at least my bees.

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