The Urban Beekeeper: a Year of Bees in the City by Steve Benbow

Author:Steve Benbow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448138647
Publisher: Random House

Water for bees

Bees need water. It is essential for maintaining a constant temperature within the hive and aiding cooling when necessary, as well as for the building of wax and diluting crystallised honey. For a colony to prosper, it is essential that you make sure they have access to a regular supply and if need be provide some. If you keep bees on a rooftop, which is often a warm suntrap anyway, it’s even more important to make sure they always have a drink handy.

More than a fresh running tap, bees seem to love dirty, stagnant water. In the countryside you’ll notice them gathering around murky puddles, paddling around in the soft mud; they can take on minerals and use the mud as a landing station.

Preferring not to piss in a pot for my bees, instead I set up an old upturned dustbin lid for containing water, with a few bricks for them to land on. The water will slowly become grubby and stagnant and that’s what they love.

It’s also generally believed that in hot weather, your honey crop will be greater if there is water on hand for bees. If you don’t provide it, then they will seek it elsewhere and this can cause problems, with large numbers of bees queuing up at other people’s small garden ponds, dripping taps and puddles.

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