Water Collecting
Verhalten der Bienen
Bees collect water to digest pollen and mix brood food, to regulate humidity in the hive, and to cool the colony in heat.
Bees collect water to digest pollen and mix brood food, to regulate humidity in the hive, and to cool the colony in heat. This is conspicuous in early spring, when hardly anything else is flying, and on hot summer days.
Water foragers do not prefer clear fresh water but slightly stale, mineral-rich spots: puddles, pond edges, damp soil. Once they have adopted a source, they keep returning to it and mark it with scent so that others can find it again. To cool the hive, the bees spread the water on the combs and fan their wings so it evaporates.
The most important rule follows from this: offer a water source early in the year and close to the apiary, before the colony has settled on the neighbor's pool. The spot should be outside the flight path, so no droppings fall into it. Figures for the annual requirement vary many times over in the literature; the only reliable point is that it rises sharply in spring and in heat.