A bee loading up with water to take back to the colony.
Here’s an amazing photo of one our bees drinking water at our bird bath (I just have to say that my husband has been taking most of the photos I’ve posted here…thanks sweetie!). Bees, like most creatures, need water, and I modified our bird bath setup with them in mind. I simply added a couple of rocks that you can find at an aquarium/fish supply store. I thought that the rough nature of the rocks would help them have a surface they could hang on to, since a friend of mine had a lot of trouble with wind blowing his bees into the water, resulting in drowning. But you can also see from the photo, that the rough rock has lots of nooks and crannies that hold water, and the bees regularly drink from them. This bee has her proboscis extended to drink.
One of the many jobs of worker bees is to collect water for the colony. A worker bee on water duty will go and fill up her stomach with water, fly back to the hive, and act as a living ‘water tank’ for other bees in the colony. Just as bees feed each other nectar and honey, they will give each other water. Cool, huh?
If you are keeping bees in an urban or suburban setting, it is friendly to your neighbors to provide a water source for your bees. Once they locate a source, it is rather difficult to divert them from it, and if one of your neighbors has a swimming pool, you don’t really want the bees going there to get a drink! Not only will your neighbors be annoyed, but lots of your bees will probably fall into the pool and drown.
Happily, our bees come to drink at our bird bath, which sits right on our front porch. This gives us a lovely diversion everytime we come and go from the house. 🙂
The Queen Bee 
When we first met, I told you that I would see one bee over and over again in my pea gravel bog. You joked with me – “The same bee?” I saw two the other day and I got to watch them for a couple of minutes and that when I figured out they must be there drinking water. In some places the gravel is well above the water. They were able to land on the gravel and get to the water without getting in it. It was fascinating to watch!
I remember that conversation. I think it is wonderful that you are seeing more bees there now. It is so fun to watch them as they go about their work on the flowers and getting their water.