Fun Fact Friday: Hydration

As with any living creature bees need water to survive. When I registered my hives it is even required that we provide a water source close to the apiaries. We are lucky enough to live less than a block from the Delta so we guaranty water well within the requirement. But we also provide 5 different watering holes for the girls. And they frequent them all! One honey bee will gather her body weight in water per day. That means for a healthy hive (80k bees or so) they go through approximately 9 gallons of water! The bees intake the water and store it in their honey stomach and then disperse it once back in the hive. They use the water to help maintain temperature and humidity in the hive. They will also use water to turn crystallized honey back to liquid. It’s another amazing facet of what these girls do and I enjoy watching them frequenting all of our watering holes.