Who says the bees are disappearing?

[Pv2]

anybody have any ideas to discourage this? they will leave when it rains (c'mon monsoons!) but that could be a couple of weeks yet.

There is plenty of other water nearby - a bird bath, a large dog/toad water, and two livestock troughs, but it seems they really like the clean chlorinated pool water a LOT!

They kind of go away for a short while if I spend a half hour splashing and making the water choppy, but it still nerve-wracking to do my backstroke laps. they are quite stupid and fall in all the time. and like a cow stuck in the mud, they are NEVER grateful to be rescued.

 

[JasonLion]

Borates will often drive away insects, though I am not 100% sure it works with bees.

 

[woodyp]

That's a herd! I'd almost hate to have to kill them.

 

[duraleigh]

It seems they like SOMETHING in that water. Have you tried sugar water in a pie pan placed a few feet away?

 

[Butterfly]

Call a bee-keeper and maybe then can round them up for a move.

 

[Pv2]

Wow, I remembered posting this last year but I didn't realize I never answered the replies. I am embarrassed and apologize!

I went looking for the post because it is that time of year again and they are back in the same numbers.

JasonLion I will read further on borates - I assume you meant as used here as part of the water chemistry. I know there is a specific "advanced" topic on that somewhere.

woodyp I don't really want to kill them as I assume they would just be replaced fairly soon by a new hive. This is not a developed area, it is pretty much just nature and any void would likely soon be filled. heh

duraleigh I have not tried that, I am thinking about it. I do have three humming bird feeders out and they get a few bees, but I think they are after water (this is Arizona in June, our driest time of year). They tend to crowd around any source of moisture this time of year. We get a lot of wasps too. I don't remember them doing this with my first pool 10 years ago. I hesitate to add another attractant such as "food" - I am afraid instead of luring them away from the pool it would draw more of them.

Butterfly I am not sure where they are coming from, I am on a ranch with a lot of potential wild hives and a lot of distance from waters. They could be coming from miles away. Or however far they will travel. We used to have a hive in a tree nearby but they don't seem to be there any longer.

Anybody else have any experience with this or ideas?

 

[boston62]

I removed one last year, i called every bee keeper and they wanted 400.00 to remove them, i removed them, may they R.I.P. You have to remove everythibg there from the bees then i used sprayed on kilz on the area, they never came back..

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Please don't kill the bees! There is currently a great problem with diminishing numbers of bees in nature and something is killing them off.

Without the bees we won't get pollination in our gardens and it potentially can ruin our food supply.

 

[Richard320]

Once bees locate a water source, they stick with it. Even if you put a water trough out just for them, they'll still go to the pool. You'd need to cover the pool 100% so they have absolutely no access to the water and then place some other water source nearby for them to discover before you reopen. Or kill 'em all. And killing them is such a waste. Having a bunch of bees nearby will make your garden and your trees blossom and bloom like you wouldn't believe.

 

[boston62]

This what I told the bee keepers in Florida, come and remove them alive, nope 400.00 to remove them. They were in my attack They started making honey combs...they had to go...