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Laurence Edwards shows how to give bees safe water using an AirCrete block in standing water. The porous surface lets them drink without drowning, which matters most in dry regions since UK rain usually handles it.
Laurence Edwards shows how to give bees safe water using an AirCrete block in standing water. The porous surface lets them drink without drowning, which matters most in dry regions since UK rain usually handles it.
In this video, I'm going to show you the simplest, cheapest method to make sure that your bees have always got constant access to fresh water. I'll definitely chuck the caveat in the beginning in that in the UK, I don't think you need to make sure that your bees have water, especially in Wales. It's what we do best— rain and dampness. However, that might not be applicable everywhere else in the world, and this is a super easy method to make sure that bees have access to water, and more importantly than that, Safe access to water. So I've seen this done in tons of different ways, but I've kind of stumbled upon this method here by accident, which is leaving a concrete breeze block in place like this underneath where water can collect. Concrete breeze blocks or AirCrete blocks are very porous, full of air, hence the name, which means that they suck up water if they're positioned in a pool of water. Now if you look over there, there is just a puddle of water and it's very, very difficult for the bees to get access to that Without drowning. They can come in from the side, they might get access to the side and they might drown. Something like this though, it is impossible for the bees to drown because there's so much that they can cling on to. And you'll see from the bees here, they don't stand anywhere near the water, they just stand on the breeze block and they suck the water out of the breeze block. We're talking minute amounts of water, milliliters of water for each bee, if that probably. So you don't need a big puddle of it, you just need a damp AirCrete block. Simple as that. In the UK, genuinely, I've not set this up to make sure my bees have got access for water. I've set this up to make sure that the lids are on these boxes, but it's a really useful technique. If you live somewhere where bees do need access to fresh water, they can't get it naturally, try this method out. It's pretty much foolproof. If you enjoyed that video, please give the video a thumbs up, hit the subscribe button. We've got loads more tips, tricks, and guidance throughout the 2023 beekeeping season.
