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making a watersource

3K views 17 replies 15 participants last post by  Hillbillynursery 
#1 ·
In the past, my hives have always been near a natural watersource. Now I am setting them up in an area where there is no natural watersouce. What is the best way to have a good watersource without creating a mosquito breeding heaven?

Thanx.

Tom
 
#5 ·
Mine do have natural water avaialble but I like to make sure they don't start bothering the neighbors. I put a five gallon bucket out and put lots of sticks in it. They land on the sticks and crawl down to the water and very few ever drown. Then I dump the bucket out once a week or so and refill.
 
#7 ·
They might not like the chlorine in the pool.


I buy large cat little pans that hold about 5 gallons +.

Line them with screen, hold it fast with ducktape.
They dont drown, and I put one with each group of 5. They catch a lot of rain, any usualy do a good job of filling themselves.

J.R.
 
#13 ·
This doesn't do much for the mosquito problem, but take a 5 gal (or sized for your needs) bucket, drill some small holes about an inch from the top and line the top with foam packing peanuts. Holes keep the peanuts from washing over the side.
 
#14 ·
A small livestock tank with some kind of float works great. To rid yourself of the bugs put a dozen feeder fish in the tank. If you have a fish tank in your home guppies work great and at the end of the season before the water gets below 60F drain the tank down to a few inches and catch the fish and sell them to the pet stores(locally owned are best to do business with). Another good fish if you get them small enough are common gold fish. Goldfish will try to eat the bees if they get to large though. If the bees are in your yard a goldfish pond works great. It adds a great landscape feature and watering hole to your bees all at once. A small of topic comment is I use a few old cast iron bath tubs with 1/4 screen over them in the woods of my dads farm for raising tropical fish. The screen keeps the wading birds out along with leaves and stuff and lets the bug in to feed the fish(guppies are called mosquito fish). The bigger tanks make for better developed tails on the veiltail guppies but the feeder guppies are much cheaper to stock such a pond but will bring alot less money come fall.
 
#17 ·
jaydee, No it will not. Bees actually will seek out mucky water before they normanlly drink the "cleaner" water that they would have by putting out some type od pail. When they have no choice then they will go with whats at hand.
I have a birdbath with clean water, a stream with clear running water, a pond with duckweed on top that only gets running water if it rains heavy, all within 100 feet of my home apiary. Bees will favor the pond with the mucky water and duckweed every time. And might I add, that I have the best dang honey on both sides of the mississippi!


tntommy, suppliment with food, enough that by the end of the year you can have some honey battered fish to fry.

If your like me...at least one of my downspouts is always clogged. The spouting holds enough water between rains that the fear of the bees not havingenough water is eliminated. Besides never mowing due to the dandelions, this matter of climbing a ladder every year has been eliminated with the downspout situation. And I never have to clean oil spots in my garage anymore since no car will ever fit inside due to the bee equipment. And since I might paint on any given day, I will wear the same paint splashed sweatpants and shirt. My outfit selection has been minimized to next to nothing. If it were not for changing my underpants, I would just sleep in the same outfit. Can't get any better than beekeeping.
 
#18 ·
You do not need to feed if it was built last fall and fish added this spring. If you go to a pond that has algea and such, dip out a couple 5 gallon buckets of this to start your ponds ammonia cycle and it add infusia(microsopic things). I never fed my bath tubs. They get plenty of natural food. Goldfish may need to be fed for a week or so until the water gets seasoned enough for the bugs to want to use it for reprodution. The other ones mentioned will be fine if you give you pond some pond water.
 
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