okay so this is something I've wanted to do for a long time you watch honey bees
going into water puddles drinking at the edge of a pond at the edge of a river
and we all have friends who have swimming pools and the honey bees seem
to go to their swimming pool to get water from the edge of the pool
sometimes it's a birdbath so I decided to make this test so on the Left I have
the pure filtered water PU R which is the name of the company that makes the
filters unfiltered well water pond water and chlorinated water which represents
the swimming pool so what are the beads gonna go to and what will they use the
most the duration of this test is about three days so at the end of this video
I'm going to show you what they preferred and what they went after I was
actually kind of surprised because here on my property we have at least four the
filtered water it's the water that we drink
so it's ultra filtered 99% filled it out lead and contaminants of any kind so
it's really clear and that's one that these bees are drinking from right here
so I just assumed they would all go after that water but do bees really
judge it and then this be right here all the way to the right this is the
chlorinated water and by chlorinated I don't mean city water
I mean it's pool treated water so you might speculate that they take water
from chlorinated sources and they use their tongues to paint it around the
hive to disinfect it who knows and of course here we have a yellowjacket wasp
that's also drinking this ultra filtered water which is in the container all the
way to the left so I thought honey bees were just like anything else for example
my chickens they just go wherever the water happens to be whatever they're
thirsty they drink it honey bees are much more discerning than that in fact
honey bees will show up at a drinking spot like this one and it's important to
keep the drinking spot location consistent so the bees always know where
to find it but they'll actually show up and often
taste test water from another bee before they go about drinking of themselves so
it's always fun and interesting to watch them do this
now you may think and in rightly so that bees go out early in the morning when
there's a heavy dew and you'll see them licking the dew off of plants they do go
after puddles and drippings especially if you've got a hose bib on the side of
your house it's a little bit leaky you can often see honeybees there getting
the drips but always go the extra yard and make sure they have a nice shaded
area in some cases or at least a cool spot where they can go to get water and
bees do not like to get their feet wet while they're drinking so if you've got
a mash or something out that is soaked with water or a sponge for example the
bees will kind of land on that last because they're trying to stay dry while
drinking even though we often see them flipping into the water and buzzing
around trying to get out again now these drinkers are designed
specifically for honeybees but these are considered landing board entry feeders
so the surface that we're looking at here would normally be inserted into the
hive and this helps to prevent robbing by other bees now of course if any of
these water sources had sugar content the bees will go after that first and
they would be certain to empty that right away but I'm just interested in
their ability to pick out the highest quality water in other words through
impurities in the water even bother the honeybees and I found that out here and
of course in the middle there you can see that they've flipped on their bags
and they're buzzing around in the water these are designed with little stepping
edges so they do ultimately get out without a problem so don't worry about
those bees they're gonna get out just fine
and of course we have the Yellow Jacket wasps mix right in with the honeybees
some people are concerned that when you set up a feeding station of any kind
that there's fighting there really isn't this territory doesn't belong to the
wasps or the honeybees or honeybees from various colonies so there's no conflict
here they they happily share watering holes
and so here's the result and if you recall all the way back at the beginning
of this demo you can see the various water levels and we can see that the
pure filtered water all the way on the left is their favourite source for water
and they've taken that right down unfiltered well water which has a lot of
iron content in it is their second favorite choice chlorinated as their
third in pond water believe it or not was the last source they wanted to drink
from and the pond that I'm talking about where this water sample was collected is
one hundred twenty feet across and it's 14 feet deep and is spring fed so it was
a really good source so that's a simple test and I hope you enjoyed it I always
wondered if they could tell water quality differences and apparently they
do and will close out watching them buzz around here on the Astor's thank you for
watching and I hope you enjoyed it and learn something new