Hi,
We just started keeping honey bees for all the reasons you would expect. Environment and pollination at the top. Before we opened the pool this year, we setup the birdbath in the garden to make it extra attractive to them. We added rocks so they had plenty of places to land, initially made the water a little salty with a touch of chlorine and even added Honey Bee Healthy which is an attractant we use in the hive. Worked great and there are loads of bees visiting it daily.
However, another "rogue" group of bees is insisting on visiting our IG salt pool with increasing frequency. It is over 250 feet from our two hives (the bird batch 'official' bee spot is in between). The rogue bees effectively marked a spot between our spa and the pool as their preferred place to go for water. We've got the pool/spa blanket on right now because it's a cool day and we leave it on over night and most mornings because we live up north and that's how we maintain our temps up here. They girls still drink from any available cracks where the blanket touches the wall or any standing water on top of it.
Unfortunately, as our hive grows, so does the population of bees at the pool. We obviously like them, and having a few around is no problem, however, when you have 50 buzzing around, it's a bit too much. So, I'm posting here to see if any one has any advice. I've searched the forum and seen a bunch of older threads, but not much info that would help me. TIA if anyone has experience with this and can offer their thoughts.
Doug in NH
We just started keeping honey bees for all the reasons you would expect. Environment and pollination at the top. Before we opened the pool this year, we setup the birdbath in the garden to make it extra attractive to them. We added rocks so they had plenty of places to land, initially made the water a little salty with a touch of chlorine and even added Honey Bee Healthy which is an attractant we use in the hive. Worked great and there are loads of bees visiting it daily.
However, another "rogue" group of bees is insisting on visiting our IG salt pool with increasing frequency. It is over 250 feet from our two hives (the bird batch 'official' bee spot is in between). The rogue bees effectively marked a spot between our spa and the pool as their preferred place to go for water. We've got the pool/spa blanket on right now because it's a cool day and we leave it on over night and most mornings because we live up north and that's how we maintain our temps up here. They girls still drink from any available cracks where the blanket touches the wall or any standing water on top of it.
Unfortunately, as our hive grows, so does the population of bees at the pool. We obviously like them, and having a few around is no problem, however, when you have 50 buzzing around, it's a bit too much. So, I'm posting here to see if any one has any advice. I've searched the forum and seen a bunch of older threads, but not much info that would help me. TIA if anyone has experience with this and can offer their thoughts.
Doug in NH
