Hot Tub Dilemma

[Charlie]

My neighbour is finding hundreds (100-200) of my bees in his hot tub every day. Obviously my neighbour and myself do not want this to happen. This is the first time in four years where it has become a problem and the only thing that is really different is the weather, it has been exceptionally warm and dry. I started feeding (In frame feeders, inside the hive) home-made Honey Bee Healthy Syrup Solution. I have even put 10 gallons of the hot tub water in front of the hives. I will not even mention the amount of free-standing water that I have in my yard. I am about to believe that my bees want to "Piss my neighbour off" ....if you could pardon the expression. It has been a bit exasperating, and I do not wish my neighbour to be upset at me over my bees

Would anybody have any suggestions as to how I can keep the bees out of his hot tub, I realize the obvious answer is move the bees 20 or 30 miles away.

[Biermann]

Hey Charlie, get your own hot tub and you can party with the bees.

Sorry, had to say that. I assume the bees go under the cover, into the nice and soggy warm ht area and then drawn? A good rain (we all hope for it) would change everything.

Can the ht be covered with large piece of cloth?

Hope you can figure it out how to do it. Maybe, move the neighbor our 20 or 30 miles? He could leave the ht, then you have one.

Cheers, Joerg

[Allen Dick]

How can you be sure they are your bees?

At any rate, the solution is to cover the hot tub completely when it is not in use. It should be anyhow since bees are not the only thing that can get in. Besides covering well saves energy.

Unless it is fenced or completely enclosed, there may also be homeowner insurance issues, however bringing that up might just throw gasoline on the fire. Tact and diplomacy and maybe some honey are the best route here.

[Charlie]

The hot tub is covered and the bees are finding their way through the cracks. I did give him a 10X10 sheet of plastic to lay on the tub before closing the lid. It is actually quite surprising the bees are attracted to it because there is a fairly strong chemical smell when he takes the lid off. The only way that I can be sure that the bee are mine is to move them. If the bees keep showing up then they are not mine. However I am 99% sure they are mine.

[cgybees]

One obvious answer is to ask if you have another water source closer to the hive than your neighbour's tub... if not, that would be my first step.

[BadBeeKeeper]

I h ve several sources of water close to the bees...they often choose to travel a couple hundred yards further to play in the mud puddles in my dirt road. Go figure.

[Charlie]

Yes I have pails of water within 10 feet of the hives, I have bird baths but apparently everything I have is to close. I even have a plum tree in flower and I can see the bumblebees on it but I have yet to see one of my bees.

Personally I cannot wait for it to rain, because I think the rain is going to bring out a lot of flowers and the bees will not be bothered with hot tubs and such of the neighbours. It is probably connected to unseasonably warm weather and the lack of moisture, somehow.

I did talk to the neighbour and a sheet of plastic between the hot tub and the lid has helped a lot. I must say that he has been totally understanding and fantastic about the whole situation. The biggest lesson I have learned from this is make sure you are talking to your neighbours in a non-confrontational manner it has worked well for me in this instance.

[Countryboy]

Is the neighbor using chlorinated water in his hot tub? For whatever reason, bees seem attracted to chlorinated water (like swimming pools) more than clean water.

Bees seem to like stagnant or nasty water better than clean water too.

Yes I have pails of water within 10 feet of the hives, I have bird baths but apparently everything I have is to close.

Is it too close, or is it too deep? Take a strip of old carpet 10 inches wide and a couple feet long. Put one end of the carpet in the bucket of water, with the carpet hanging over the side of the bucket. The carpet will wick up the water out of the bucket. Bees love to drink water from wet carpet.

Also you need to keep in mind that bees will lock onto a water source, and then ignore other water sources. If you want to train the bees to get water somewhere else, you need to totally prevent them from getting water from the hot tub, and at the same time provide the bees a different water source. Once the bees start getting their water somewhere else, they will 'forget' the hot tub as a water source. (Unless the hot tub has chlorine in it, which can act as some kind of attractant to the bees.)

[Charlie]

Countryboy I love the carpet idea I have not heard of that but will definitely try it. I suspect some kind of acrylic fibre would work best? Thanks for the suggestion.

Actually the pails of water in front of the beehive was water from his hot tub, I was thinking he was putting something in this hot tub to make it smell better that was acting as an attractive. The hot tub did have a very strong chemical smell which I personally did not like. So far the plastic between the hot tub cover and the hot tub has worked the best.

[cgybees]

Actually the pails of water in front of the beehive was water from his hot tub, I was thinking he was putting something in this hot tub to make it smell better that was acting as an attractive.

Maybe it's dihydrogen monoxide

(My kid was horrified yesterday when I told him the bottled water he was drinking was full of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide until I walked him through how that translated to H2O)..

Then I got the appropriate groan for terrible Dad humor.

[WesternWilson]

I have just finished a small research project on bee preference as it relates to water source, so see if this info is of any help!

Bees choose a water source early in the spring and are incredibly loyal to it...so if you want to change their watering location, some persuasion will be needed.

Bees are initially attracted by both the scent of the water (leafy, chlorine-y, salty, manure-y) and the water vapour concentration over the water site. Heated hot tubs have high scent AND high vapour from the heating, and actually usually a lot of salts in the hot tub chemicals as well.

You can get them to transfer their loyalty from the hot tub to a better source by baiting...you can set up a water station ie. a cat waterer with the water bowl part filled with stones or sticks so the bees don't drown. To begin with, fill the water station with a very weak sucrose (table sugar) solution to get the bees drawn to the source, and then once they adopt that source, gradually reduce the sugar and replace it with a weak saline solution.

To prevent your watering station from becoming a disease transfer station (because other bees than your own may visit too), you can try putting a boardman feeder in each hive, either at the entrance or in an empty super over the inside cover, and bait as above. The idea here is that each hive has its own water source, but no one has written a paper on whether they actually do use these individual water feeders, so I cannot be sure they actually do!

Let me know how it goes!

[Charlie]

by WesternWilson » Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:12 am
and replace it with a weak saline solution.

Will any kind of salt work? I have never considered Bees needing salt. Does anyone have any experience with this?

[tcjackso1010]

I set up a hive this spring about 10' from my hottub. I had read about bees being attracted to chlorine, but I used bromine in my hot tub so I decided to give it a shot. The hot tub is covered except when we're using it.

I also keep a pan full of rocks and water next to the hive, and so far, we haven't had any issues. I think I've counted two dead bees in the tub so far.


Switching to Bromine may help your neighbour. It stinks less than chlorine anyway.


-Todd