Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Honeybees and Water

photo: Luc Viatour

Honeybees use water for a few different purposes. The most obvious use of water is for drinking, and bees also use water to dilute the honey they feed their young. Another use that honeybees have for water to cool the inside of the hive. They will place droplets of water all over inside the hive when the weather is hot. They fan their wings and circulate the air past the droplets of water. This cools the air as it passes by the droplets, creating a swamp cooler type effect inside the hive.

Honeybees will find the closest source of water to their hives that they can. They will often decide on a water source and use it exclusively, sometimes ignoring other sources. In hot weather, a healthy colony can use a quart of water a day! To gather that much water, over 800 bees each had to make 50 trips to the water source!

Guttation on a Strawberry leaf by Noah Elhardt

Bees will collect water from almost any possible source. This includes wet surfaces, standing puddles, damp earth, pools, drippy faucets, pet water dishes, and even the sides of swamp coolers. Bees get some water from the nectar they gather. Plants can help provide water to bees in ways other than just in the nectar of their flowers. Moisture collects on leaves and stems in tiny drops called dew, easily collected by bees. In some weather conditions, plants also exude watery liquid from inside. This is called guttation.

Water is a necessity to bees just as it is to every form of life on earth. Water can also be very dangerous these days. Pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals can drift into water supplies, especially ground water. Bees that collect water directly from chemically treated plants can be gathering highly concentrated doses of lethal poisons. Even if the dose of chemical isn’t enough to kill the individual bee, it can still have devastating effects. The bees carry tainted water back to the hive and share it among workers, weakening the immune system of the individuals that drink it. Contaminated water that may not kill a grown bee could certainly kill honeybee larva, destroying the colony.

This is yet another reason why it important to avoid the use of chemicals in your garden, on your lawn, or anywhere. The effect of chemical use on our environment is serious and far reaching.