Happy Hour at the Double-Bar-Bee Saloon and Birdbath

(The temperature has dropped 18 degrees in three hours time, the breeze has picked up and, off to the northwest of here, I heard the low rumble of thunder.  Dare I say rain is on its way?  Better not; don't want to jinx things.)

There weren't as many bees at the trough this morning as there were yesterday, but they (and a big black ant) provided much entertainment.  (I lost the photo of the ant interacting with the bees when I tried loading it into the computer.)

The bees do a zig-zag fly-by before circling and finally settling down on the rim of the bowl.  There is a good-sized rock in the middle of the bowl, for those short legged birds that prefer not to get their rear ends wet while drinking.  Some of the bees would crawl under the exposed edge, hanging upside down to drink.  Most of them, though, seemed to prefer landing on the slope of the rim.  A few tilted a bit too far forward and ended up face first in the drink.  I fished more than one imbiber out today when they couldn't right themselves.

Several bees stumbled away from the birdbath bowl like drunks from their bar stools.  Made me wonder if their bellies were so full of water they lost their balance, or if water is intoxicating to bees.

Three bees settled next to each other on the rim, and were drinking for almost 30 seconds.  They were so focused on the water that they didn't see the ant running along behind them.  The ant ran past all three, then turned around and drew near the bees.  It touched its antennae to the rear end of the first bee, which leaped up buzzing, and frantically flapping its wings.  Ant moved on to the next bee, who hadn't moved a millimeter from its spot at the bar.  This time, the ant gently nipped the rear of his victim, who reacted the same way as the first one, and flew off, buzzing loudly in the most irritated manner.  Ant then moved closer to the third bee, jaws open, as if ready to nip the last one a little harder. 

Ha!  The third bee whirled around and shot a perfect sphere of water into the ant's open jaw, with enough force that ant fell backwards off the edge of the birdbath, into the leaves beneath.  Tickled the heck out of me.  I could imagine the other two bees cheering on their comrade from the sidelines.

I didn't know bees drink water, assumed they drink only nectar.  Does all this water-drinking mean the honey they make will be less concentrated?  Do they take the water back to cool off the hive, or the queen?  What do they do with it, other than knock tail-nipping ants into the dirt?