Bees and water with and with out salt, what do they like best!!!

[Bee-Key-Pur]

In some of the old beekeeping books I’ve read, they used to add a little salt to water and put it out for the bees, so I thought I would give it a go, but conduct a little test at the same time.
So I put out two water feeder, one with a little salt in it and the other filled with plain water.

The result so far after a week is that they like the one with salt and I have not seen one bee on the water feeder with plain water in it, so I guess they were correct about this practice...

 

[Luminos]

Mine preferred the swimming pool, which was salty water, to anything else

 

[Rosti]

Brakish water, perhaps it's the mineral content. Either way, I fill my chicken drinker with stored rain water.

 

[dpearce4]

Thats good my hives are 100m from a very, very, very large swimming pool, its called the english channel and we have a river going into it less that 500m from us so my bees must be in seventh heaven. lol

 

[fox403]

Last year was at coast came back took off hiking boots 10 mins later laces coverd with bees drinking strange site

Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk

 

[REDWOOD]

See you learn something new every day, bees need salts just like us, now which salt do I buy sea, rock or table or do T***s sell it (probably will next year) and how much do you put in a gallon ?

 

[madasafish]

See you learn something new every day, bees need salts just like us, now which salt do I buy sea, rock or table or do T***s sell it (probably will next year) and how much do you put in a gallon ?

Don't be like the backwoods turkey amateur who worried about his turkeys' water supply freezing in winter so he put salt in it. The water did not freeze - but his turkeys all died...

 

[Skyhook]

Don't be like the backwoods turkey amateur who worried about his turkeys' water supply freezing in winter so he put salt in it. The water did not freeze - but his turkeys all died...

I guess the best way to avoid this would be to provide salty water if you want... but have a supply of fresh as well.

 

[user 6228]

I guess the best way to avoid this would be to provide salty water if you want... but have a supply of fresh as well.

why not have a selection of concentrations then tell us which one they went to the most...
I used to be in a heath working party cutting down and burning of the scrub birch and gorse. The dexter cows on the heath really liked this because they ate the cold ashes and they would smel the fire, bellow loudly, trundle over, then hang around waiting for the fire to go out.

 

[Finman]

to add a little salt to water

The result so far after a week is that they like the one with salt and I have not seen one bee on the water feeder...

I have tried salt several times and I have not seen any difference with salt content.

The taste of rotten wood of peat interests bees like in the pic.

When bees get something into their mind they go there.

In Spring I use to make a heat shelter with glass plates. Bees like to suck water early in the morning in places whis are warm.

.

 

[Pete D]

I dropped a hard lump (about 1lb) of fondant into the bird bath type bowl in front of my hives yesterday (probably not a good idea) and half hour later the bees had doubled in numbers..............dont worry I wont make a habit of it.
Pete

 

[fox403]

Still think its the salt they are attracted too ...I'll test them tomorrow

sent from fox's moby

 

[peteinwilts]

not convinced i am going to try it, but marine salt can be bought from a aquarium shop that sells marine fish.

reef salt contains for minerals

 

[BeeJayBee]

There's a youtube video that suggests putting out a salt block for bees.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnF712YQ5CY[/ame]