Bee problem

[thoffland]

I'm a new pool owner and we have a "sundeck" which has a 4" deep section. In that section the designer put in a "beer rock" which has a flat surface for drinks... well that's nice and all, but the water leeches up the side of the rock and has now become the bee drinking fountain.

I'm sure I can't be the only one with this problem, I'm curious to know if and how you solved the problem.

At this point I'm thinking of dropping the water level and putting a coat of epoxy on the rock at the waterline to stop the leeching and possibly eliminate their ability to keep a grip on the rock to drink.

[thoffland]

OK, I found somewhat of a solution. I guess it's an old recipe, but I used dishsoap (Dawn) and water mixture and just started spraying them all. Sure enough, they'd eventually fall out of the sky and I scooped them up out of the pool and into the skimmer they went.

I didn't really want to kill them, but the only repellent I could find on the net was Phenol, and that's just not a good solution for my children. I was at it for about 1.5 hours while swimming in the pool and eventually there were only one or two left. This was last weekend, and still I only get about 5-10 at any given time, and they're not a problem. I keep the bottle of soapy water handy in case I need to spray a few, but it's much better now.