[Smokeybee]

There is no fall flow where I live but I have located a property owner north of me who will let me set up an out yard. I plan to put the bees as far as possible from his home up against the property line which borders a huge open field.

His swimming pool is 100 yards from this spot. I plan to put out buckets of water with floating straw or foam peanuts as a water source.

Two questions:

1. How far away from the bees is optimum for my buckets?

2. Is there something I can put in the water (salt, etc.) that will make it more attractive than pool water?

I don't want to wear out my welcome on his property with bees in his pool.

Thanks

 

[ericweller]

A speaker at our club said that bees have a hard time finding forage that is less than 50 feet from their hives. It also helps to put an obstacle (trees, bushes, etc.) between the water and the hives if it is a short distance away.
I have a neighbor that complained about my bees around their pool. I got a chicken waterer from Tractor Supply and filled it with a some sugar syrup to get the bees to find it. Once they emptied it, I added water that had a bit of salt and refilled the waterer. The bees mostly used that water although, it did not totally prevent the bees from visiting their pool.

 

[Ravenseye]

Once bees lock onto a water source it's not easy to get them going elsewhere. My neighbors have a pool about 100 yards from my hives. I suppose the bees visit the pool but between the hives and the pool is a chicken waterer as well as a bird bath. They LOVE the birdbath. I think the best thing is to just give them something closer and hope that they use it first. I used to add a few drops of chlorine in the waterer and maybe it helped....I'm not sure but I don't do that now.

 

[Michael Palmer]

The pool owners might try using Baquacil rather than a chlorine product. Bees love chlorine...as it breaks down into NaCl.

 

[My-smokepole]

As a water source I know some people that have had good luck with a half whiskey barrel. Under a down spout. Put some water plane in it for them to land on. And a couple feeder goldfish. To eat any mosquito larva.

 

[TurtleSpider]

I grow azolla on top of a tub of water about 100 feet away. The azolla provides something for them to stand on and makes collecting water simple, far better than straw. At any point in time over summer there are 40+ bees collecting water there. I have to top it up each day as the water level drops a lot.

 

[elmer_fud]

I am not sure if it helped or not, but I put a spoonfull of honey on a floating platform to try to attract the bees to the water source that I had. It seemed to work, but I am not sure this was what caused the bees to chose the water source I wanted

 

[Smokeybee]

Good stuff, thank you all.

 

[JConnolly]

The neighbor's pool is 200' (60m) from my hive. I tried buckets and various water sources at about 100' (30m) distance. What finally worked was to get a Walmart kiddie wading pool the same blue colors as the neighbor's pool lining and put it in the line of flight to the neighbor's pool. The bees have to overfly it and seemed to think it was the pool as they immediately started going there instead.

 

[Murdock]

Yep, adding chlorine bleach to water attracts bees. Every time I wash the driveway I get a lot of bees coming for a drink.

 

[AstroBee]

His swimming pool is 100 yards from this spot. I plan to put out buckets of water with floating straw or foam peanuts as a water source.

One key factor is consistency of the water source! If the source you provide fails for any reason, you can bet that the bees are going to be in the pool. Once they target the pool it is a MUCH harder thing to pull them away from that source. Not sure about the foam peanuts idea. Some of the newer style peanuts are actually biodegradable, which would be a problem. I'd consider a rigid piece of foam board with terry cloth wrapped over it so that is wicks up the water.

This is what I did to keep bees out of my saltwater system swimming pool

https://youtu.be/EhA9ZEizugo

 

[Outdoor N8]

My bees two years ago honed in on my neighbors pool, they LOVED her floating warming mat, they would land on it and walk to the edge.

I bought her an inexpensive bottle of Peppermint oil and she put it in the pool. At the same time, I added a couple drops of Lemon grass oil to the water I have in their 5 gal buckets that have 2 in. of wine corks floating in it.

And no, we don't drink THAT much wine but I do have a large, local, vineyard that hosts quite a few hives for me, so bags of corks are easy to attain.

 

[JWPalmer]

Your local homebrew shop can sell you bags of corks and they are really inexpensive. Although, needing corks could be an excuse to become a wine connoisseur.

 

[Hops Brewster]

Your local homebrew shop can sell you bags of corks and they are really inexpensive. Although, needing corks could be an excuse to become a wine connoisseur.

Absolutely true. And I like your way of thinking!