5 Natural Ways to Keep Bees Away from Your Pool, According to Experts

Picture this: you're ready for a perfect pool day, and suddenly you're sharing the water with a bunch of uninvited buzzing guests. Bees around the pool are annoying at best and genuinely scary at worst, especially if someone in your family is allergic to stings.

But here's the thing - bees aren't trying to crash your pool party on purpose. They're just desperately thirsty during those brutal summer months when everything else has dried up. The trick to keep bees away from pool areas isn't declaring war on them, but giving them better options somewhere else in your yard.

Don Shump from Philadelphia Bee Co. and David Mizejewski from the National Wildlife Federation know exactly how to handle this situation without hurting these important pollinators. Their advice actually works, and it won't cost you a fortune either.

5 Ways to Reclaim Your Pool From Buzzing Visitors

1. Give Them Their Own Watering Hole

Bees hit up your pool for the same reason you do on a hot day - they need water to survive. Even chlorinated pool water attracts them because when it splashes onto the concrete, the chlorine evaporates and leaves behind perfectly good drinking water.

Natural bee deterrents start with meeting their needs somewhere else. Grab some shallow dishes or plant saucers, fill them with fresh water, and add pebbles or marbles so bees can land without drowning. Place these bee bars as far from your pool as possible, ideally near where you think their hive might be located.

Birdbaths work great too, especially if you throw some rocks in there for landing pads. Some folks even run soaker hoses in their gardens to create muddy spots that bees love. Just change the water daily because nobody wants mosquito breeding grounds.

2. Break Up Their Daily Routine

Most people don't realize that bees are total creatures of habit. Once they find a reliable water source, they'll keep coming back to that exact same spot every single day like it's their personal Starbucks.

Pool bee prevention sometimes means temporarily covering your pool for a few days while you set up those alternative water sources. Yeah, it's a pain not being able to swim, but think of it as a short-term sacrifice for long-term peace.

While your pool is covered, bees have to find water somewhere else. If you've made those new drinking stations attractive enough, they'll switch their routine to the new spots. Once bees change their habits, they usually stick with the new arrangement.

3. Hide All the Sweet Stuff

Thirsty bees are manageable, but hungry bees are a whole different nightmare. When flowers start drying up in the summer heat, bees get desperate for anything sweet - and that includes your poolside snacks and drinks.

Bee-free swimming means being really careful about food around the pool. Cover everything sweet with those mesh food tents, clean up spills immediately, and watch out for leaky hummingbird feeders. If bees find a sugar bonanza, they'll tell all their friends about it.

One spilled soda can turn your peaceful pool area into bee headquarters for the rest of the summer, so don't mess around with this one.

4. Plant a Bee Garden Far Away

Instead of trying to eliminate all flowers from your yard (which would be pretty sad), create an amazing bee garden as far from your pool as possible. Think of it as building them their own entertainment district.

Backyard bee control works way better when you give bees something they want more than your pool water. Plant stuff like lavender, sunflowers, and native wildflowers at least 50 feet away from your swimming area if you can manage it.

Bees would much rather hang out at an all-you-can-eat flower buffet than sip chlorinated pool water anyway. This approach makes everyone happy - bees get great food, you get a beautiful garden, and your pool stays relatively bee-free.

5. Learn to Ignore Them (Seriously)

Most bees visiting pools are just honey bees getting water - they're not interested in bothering swimmers who don't bother them first.

The absolute worst thing you can do is start swatting at bees or freaking out. That's when people actually get stung because panicked bees become defensive bees. If you see bees at your pool, just move to a different area for a few minutes and let them finish drinking.

What Actually Works

The bottom line with keep bees away from pool strategies is remembering that bees aren't trying to ruin your fun - they're just trying not to die of thirst. Work with them instead of against them, and you'll probably find that sharing your backyard is actually pretty manageable.