When you have a plan but the bees decide otherwise

I was given a lovely tree, a willow tree, I've always wanted one.

This morning I decided exactly where I wanted this tree to go on our small holding, so I began to prepared the area.

I made so much effort in my planning it's a shameful 😂

Where I could have a few more tress nearby, possibly a little stream with a mini bridge to get a cross to the willow honestly the plans for this were on another level.

Its going to be beautiful when it's done a little place out of the way just to sit and ponder.

This morning, I watered the tree and some other trees ready for planting, and went about my morning to come back later in the day.

The sun comes out so I'm thinking I'm going to go plant them trees!

Gets to my trees I hear the most loud buzzing noise.

Not forgetting we are close to May and honeybees are well known to swarm as of this month.

I'm looking up right near these trees thinking where's it coming from forgetting as this minute I left the trees in water, my head moved to the sound and wow. 😜.

The honeybees are collecting water!

Neadless to say I'm not planting my trees now till later but I don't mind they obviously need it.

So I removed the tree carefully so the bees could get to the water better rather than drowning.

All is good, the bees happily can collect there water now.

So why do honeybees need water?

There are a couple of reasons why

Honeybees need water to thin the honey:- Honeybees can not use any honey that is crystallised or become too viscous. Think of solid honey in a jar, usually we warm it up when required some of us do it in a microwave, (I know you do, you have told me on the market 😂) for a few seconds so we can spread it on our toast. Well bees don't have microwaves so it becomes no good for them to use.

Another reason is to regulate the temperature of the beehive.

Honeybees need to keep the Hive temperature regulated especially now during the broad rearing season.

As you know from our beeswax candles and melts in hot conditions the wax becomes soft and can melt, which would not be a great for the bees if their Hive gets too as you can imagine, what a mess it would be.

The bees go out to find a water source, use their proboscis (tougues) slurp up the water, (you might spot this in the video) then store it in their crops and take it back to the Hive. This can be done up to 50 trips collecting around 25g of water per time per bee.

Once back at the beehive its given to a bee at the entrance it's then taken to the cells, spat out and then is fanned to keep the cell cool,

Bee air conditioning!!

Amazing so my trees will wait another day and I will pop some water in its place for them to reach safely.