# Neighbor's pool over fence watering plan



## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

think you might have a hard time keeping them from the pool even if they are working your water source 50000 bees in a box 100 (rough estimate) of them bound to make it there every day hope your neighbor is not a 1ss1ole some people find 5 bees in pool a day and think its the end of the world


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## warrior (Nov 21, 2005)

I once got a swarm call for those five bees, believe it or not.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I chipped up an almost-used-up mineral block, and put maybe a tablespoon in my 7-gallon poultry waterer on each fillup. Not having a neighbor with a pool I have no idea if it makes a difference, but they like it. I have it about 30 ft from the apiary.


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

They like moist potting soil also.


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## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

had a neighbor flip about bees in there bird bath told them to take water out for a week or 2 and that was like i asked them to pack up and move


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

My bees love my bird bath and my chicken's water after a rain they love the mud where my chickens run I think it is all the minerals from poop. It was 50 degrees yesterday and they were in the chicken feed filling their pollen sacs with powder from the feed taking it back to the hives. One thing that became clear to me bees go and do what ever they want to do they are everywhere like it or not.


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## Houstonbees (Jul 7, 2014)

Doesn't make a difference if you're trying to nip it in the bud. With my two hives I've got a bird bath about 30 feet away under a tree. On a hot day here in Houston I've counted as many as 30 bees at a time on the rim of the bird bath tanking up and flying back to the hive. Same day quite a number on the edge of the waterfall that tumbles into our next door neighbors pool, and in the ditch in front of our house, and drinking from the recently watered pots on the back patio. They are going to drink where ever they want to. Bird bath in the back yard---I've added as much as a gallon a day on a hot day.


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## sjj (Jan 2, 2007)

StingerMcStung said:


> So I'm hoping to nip any issue in the bud by providing water before bees arrive.


Put an aquarium heater into a big water container, 
and cover the water surface with a flat styrofoam plate to keep the warmth. 

The bees will prefere warm water and ignore your neighbor's pool. 
Working with electricity can be dangerous.


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## ABruce (Dec 27, 2013)

I have a pool that is located 50 ft from my hives last year we had 12 hives, I put a water container right at the hives, tried adding salts ect. Nothing seemed to attract them away from the pool . We also have a fish pond and I noticed the bees sitting on the edge of some plants potted completely in peat moss, they seemed to eat or take some of the moss or maybe they just stomped it down, At any rate a couple of pots full of wet peat moss in the water container by the hives and the visits to the pool lessened immensely. Peat acidifys the water and our water is naturally hard , the pool water we adjust the PH on so I wonder if PH has an effect.


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

I let the water get a bit of "character" and haven't received any complaints from the neighbor, it helps their pool is 400 ft from the closest hive. But they still drink out of the potted plants.


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

If Possible, NEVER let anyone that lives near you, know that you keep bees. My coworkers and family know I keep bees, my neighbors do not....


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## Sky (Jul 7, 2015)

Robbin said:


> If Possible, NEVER let anyone that lives near you, know that you keep bees. My coworkers and family know I keep bees, my neighbors do not....


This is probably advice "as the situation warrants" .... All my neighbors know I have bees. They've all been educated..... and everyone gets a jar or two of honey every year....no problems....

I do understand about impossible neighbors that can't be pleased...


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## SteveStevenson (Feb 14, 2014)

Stinger, my two hives are less than 20 feet from my neighbor's pool. They have never found a bee in their skimmer( last 2 years). Why? Between them &. Me is a 6 ft wood fence. I sit on my deck & watch my bees fly up and then away. Just my experience, yours may be different


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## Steve zone 5 WI (Jan 2, 2013)

I have several rainwater sources around my 1 acre lot. They range from stinky,stagnate, black water to fresh off the roof. The bees are at all of them at any given time. For some reason they really like my neighbors birdbath too. He _*likes*_ sitting nearby watching them come and go. 
I am sure that my bees are at another neighbors pool. She cant identify the difference between a yellow jacket and a Honey bee and I wont educate her either. If she sees a bee in her pool she asks her husband what it is and he replies " a yellow jacket" even if its a Honey bee.  (we'er drinkin buddys)
Back to your question...I was really worried about my bees becoming pests to my neighbors. 
(and they have at times). I don't know that there is anything you can do to ensure your bees wont visit your neighbors pool at any given time. My situation may be different than yours. I asked all my neighbors in all directions if it was OK with them that I keep bees. None of them said no. I also told them that if my bees ever get too annoying to let me know. I'll move them, no hard feelings.


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

Sky said:


> This is probably advice "as the situation warrants" .... All my neighbors know I have bees. They've all been educated..... and everyone gets a jar or two of honey every year....no problems....
> 
> I do understand about impossible neighbors that can't be pleased...


Let a 4 year old grand daughter get stung, and they can become impossible neighbors that can't be pleased.... Don't take the chance if you don't have too...


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## Fishmaster50 (Apr 30, 2015)

I am the one with the bees and I got the pool also. I have a watering container under the hive but between the hive and pool I got a 5 gallon bucket upside down which they really like. So I put a quart jar upside down on that lip in the middle and let's water out all day. I see a good amount of bees there but always have a few at the pool. On a hot day the quart jar is empty by the time I get home. I think it would be hard to get them to stay away from pool. To big of a water source.


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## StingerMcStung (Apr 27, 2015)

Thank you all for the replies.

It sounds like I should keep water (perhaps ph/chlorine balanced similar to pool water) and warm if possible, for no other reason than to be able to show where 'my bees' get 'their' water and hope they use it in lieu of said pool.

I'm thinking a cattle trough full of wine corks, so less refills in the summer.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Some scrap one by boards in a trough will work better than corks. More stable. Also keep mosquito larvae in mind. I use a five gallon bucket full of sticks (they to from the bottom of the bucket to outside the bucket) and dump and refill it once a week to get rid of the mosquito larvae. The bees crawl down the sticks to the water. I have hardly any drowning.


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## StingerMcStung (Apr 27, 2015)

I can do 1x's and sticks then. Buckets would be easier to move too.

Agreed re: mosquitoes nasty stuff moving northward. I plan on adding 1tsp/5gallons of bleach; simulate pool water and kill nasties.

Thanks


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## sjj (Jan 2, 2007)

sjj said:


> Put an aquarium heater into a big water container,
> and cover the water surface with a flat styrofoam plate to keep the warmth.


Examples
Honey Bee Salt Preferences Project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0E3p9olceg
Fresh Water For Bees – windbreaks plus sunny place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZCqOFXioDk
Honey bees on the sheep waterer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jcRhkF0V4w
Automatic water feeder for apiaries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRHMx4OHh50

One needs a heater to achieve similar results as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgkD1h1gTG0


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

Had a problem last spring and this absolutely worked for me.

1. Get big 5 gal. Chicken waterer. 
2. I used the pool water, but it was my pool. And added lemon grass oil to it. About 10 drops.
3. Put gravel in the water so bees dont drown.

Thats it. They will be on it that day. Not one bee on my pool steps after that. Bee waterer sits on my pool deck, two feet from pool edge. All is about 150' from 13 hives.

P.s. it is a salt water pool. After initial lemongrass was added. I never had to add more. Just kept using pool water.


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## jcolon (Sep 12, 2014)

I use pool water too. I think they like the salt. They also come to my pool and drink from a drop leak on a pipe. So I never fixed the pipe. They crawl on the wet puddle and drink too, and sometimes gather around the skimmer.


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## lords88 (May 18, 2015)

I placed water right next my hive last year and I never saw a bee touch it for the first month. I then placed a large pie plate style metal dish with some rocks tapered up on one side to the edge, then a couple drops of lemon grass oil, I also placed the dish in my garden (100ft from hive) by a sprayer so it would fill itself up automatically. The bees found it that day and they have continued to use it, and I haven't added any more LGO.


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

Well, that's a use for LGO I had not considered. I heard some one say they put a piece of old carpet in the water to prevent drowning. I have a water pan on one of my hive stands, but the hives are maybe 15 feet away from my pond, so no shortage of water. I draped some denim fabric over a brick in the water pan, the bees seem to like it. Don't let the fabric hang over the side of the pan, it will wick all the water out.


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## StingerMcStung (Apr 27, 2015)

Thanks everyone. I'll put the LGO to use in the water and save the syrup experiment for the future. I'll have enough to overcome with a 1st year learning curve, I'm guessing.


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## Tejones121 (Apr 28, 2015)

StingerMcStung said:


> Thanks everyone. I'll put the LGO to use in the water and save the syrup experiment for the future. I'll have enough to overcome with a 1st year learning curve, I'm guessing.


Last summer I set up an old concrete birdbath about 30' in front of my hives and filled it with fresh water. Bees wouldn't touch it. They insisted on the dogs water bowl, kids water slide, and every other source of smelly water around. So put some grass clippings, a couple of sticks, and a handful of mud from the bottom of the ditch in the birdbath and the bees were all over it within a day or so.


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## sjj (Jan 2, 2007)

I would suggest the lava rocks, as in: “Fresh Water For Bees” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZCqOFXioDk . Remember – windbreaks plus a sunny place. 
How to prepare it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CogvVTdbZRA 

A special feature of lava rocks is the porous structure and the foraminous surface. 
The unusual surface structure contributes that on the lava stones numerous bacteria
deliver important services to the biological balance. 

I would use fresh water as in film above without priming it with unknown microorganisms. 
The porous structure is also filled with warm air.


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## exmar (Apr 30, 2015)

FWIW, my hives are on a high hill, about 400 feet from the nearest water source. Tried various shallow pans, etc. with rocks, etc. What they finally decided they liked was a couple of gallon chicken waterer's with wine corks end to end all around the circumference. If I had access to water where the hives are, I'd use a "drip irrigation" thing to provide damp earth, that seems to be their facorite.


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## sjj (Jan 2, 2007)

Aquatic flowering plant 

I sit on the higher ground that is along the edge of the river. This river is a big, vital and navigable waterway. I have never spotted bees drinking from the river. 

A lady which has a garden nearby, about 200 meters from the apiary, called me once to come and see how many bees were there. She had a small pond, 2m in diameter, with beautiful water roses in full sun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphaeaceae .
They had really beautiful ornamental nature giving pleasure to my mind and eyes. 
On its leaves were thousands and thousands of bees sitting and drinking. 
The lady did not accept this situation and get rid of her pond. I was disappointed.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

I have a pool and over 20 colonies at my house. The key is to not let the bees target the pool. Easy, right? The basics, you need to provide a close, desirable, and most importantly a reliable water source. Over the first few years of keeping bees I tried different solutions, like a slow dripping hose on a wooden incline, a 5 gallon water fountain that splashed water on rocks, and a large pool of water on a depressed spot on the lawn. All worked with various levels of success. Eventually, I put in a pond with a stream with lots of rocks and floating plants to give the bees a safe place to take water. This totally solved the pool issues. 

I hear the claims that bees like chlorinated water. My pool is a salt system, so the chlorine is minimal, but even without strong chlorine if their source dried up they sure loved the pool, making it unbearable to use for non-beekeepers. Sure, chlorine has a strong smell, which is probably the biggest things that attracts them and likely not some desire for chlorine. Given that, I suggest NOT using chlorinated pool water in your source, but instead another scent, like HBH, or Bee-Scent (http://www.planetnatural.com/product/bee-scent/) to train them to your preferred source (training only - plain water thereafter). 

Yes, not everyone is going to put in a pond, so you'll need something else. If I had to do it again without a pond, I'd probably use a large container filled with wood mulch and a water supply that can reliably keep in moist all the time. Set this up can soon as possible and NEVER let it run dry. You could get a hose timer to dispense water each day, making sure your container has a drain that keeps the water level well below the top of the container. This should work.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

JWC posted this in another forum.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ctive-Potassium-salt-aversive-to-bee-foragers


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