Wicker table with lots of bees

JonnyPicklechin · Mar 12, 2019

We bought a nice garden furniture set last summer. Probably synthetic rather than wicker. Any road up, its been getting lots of bees crawling about on it since their recent winter emergence. Immediate thought was it must have some "legacy" sweet substance on it from last year. But the bees dont seem to "licking" anything.
Any suggestions on this behaviour? We didnt notice anything peculiar with furniture and bees last year during the autumn months.....

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Murox · Mar 12, 2019

If they are not sucking anything up maybe its just a nice sheltered warm spot/place to hang out for a while. With bees who really knows?

madasafish · Mar 12, 2019

Water collection?
In Monday's sunshine there were bees all over the garden - I assume collecting water as they need it to dilute honey stores (Not feeding any fondant to full size colonies)

enrico · Mar 12, 2019

I would vote for water too. Until they find a good source they experiment all over the place. Often seen on wet grass and plant leaves. Anywhere water has been warned slightly by sun. They will extract moisture even if it doesn't look wet!
E

thedozzer · Mar 12, 2019

I would vote for water collection to, as our garden hive are on just about every wet surface on a warm day, they love moss in the lawn and they must be getting desperate as they are even using the large tray filled with gravel & water that we put out for them!!

JonnyPicklechin · Mar 12, 2019

Cheers all...will continue to watch and update the thread if anything worth recording.

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Millet · Mar 12, 2019

Not water but a mineral of some kind...my colonies have plenty of water sources but by god they love dog pee up plant pots and also the waste from the dishwasher/clothes washer..me think's they are nibbling away..