A beekeeper from back in the 1950's who is still busy told me that I could wet my finger with
"warm, not hot" water, press it gently against the screen on the queen cage, and the bees will drink it up. It worked - in the sense that the bees took it, and in fact went after it when offered. I only "watered" them once or twice like this over a day during a time when we still had the heat on at night (inside) so the air was kind of dry.  Our water is "city water".

It's a bad idea to "anthropomorphize" the bees (thanks George Imrie) but having watched bees "drink" from the wet surface of concrete around a pool (even worse water, I think, than from my tap) I think the bees might prefer their water "straight up" as opposed to drawing it up from the wet sugar at the end of the bee cage. Plus it's fun to "water" then this way, and kids like to do it too.

/C.Crowell
Hightstown, NJ

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