Everybody now knows how important our bees are and that some species in the UK are in difficulties. As gardeners we can help by encourage bees to our gardens by planting bee-friendly plants. We can also provide a water source for bees who regularly visit us. Many gardens, like mine, may not have any water sources at all. Those that do have bird baths and ponds may not be bee friendly
Bees need access to safe water sources as it is very easy for them to drown in bird baths. As well as for drinking in hot weather Honey bees also use water to regulate the temperature of the hive, specifically reduce the temperature when too hot. So in summer a good fresh water supply is needed.
A really good project you can undertake with your children is to create a bee watering hole. They will love it as it involves marbles or small glass stones. For toddlers they will enjoy keeping it topped up with water and as its very shallow it’s safe for all ages.
We created our bee watering hole by :-
- Using a large plastic flower pot water tray (you could use a large plastic lid)
- Placing numerous small glass beads and some large marbles for the bees to rest on
- And then adding water.
- We then placed our bee watering hole next to plants were we knew the bees would be feeding in the first stance this was chive flowers.
Here we were rewarded with a tiny visitor.
We are really looking forwards to motoring our visitors to the bee watering hole this year. Good luck with yours. We would love to see some photographs.
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