Building a bee waterer

credit to: http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Building_a_bee_waterer/

We're still feeding our honeybees, helping them sock away some extra honey to make it through the winter.  I've been giving them really strong sugar water (half sugar, half water) to make it easier for them to dehydrate the liquid into honey in the cool weather, but that seems to make the bees exceptionally thirsty.  At the same time, I poured out our kiddie pool of water since it's too late in the year to be soaking mushrooms.  The combination of factors sent the bees searching for other water sources, and we started finding drowned bees in every standing body of water around the farm.

Guilt-stricken, I set up a water feeder by filling a pie pan with marbles and then water.  The marbles give the bees a spot to land so that they don't drown when they come to drink, and the bees were suitably impressed.  No more drowned bees!