We got some cattails from a friend a few weeks ago and they are supposed to filter our gray water.   However, we haven't gotten around to waterproofing yet and the cattails have been sitting in a bucket by the house.  We noticed the MANY bees in the bucket and I've been waiting to add water until dusk, after the bees have left.
The peppers, melons and squash in our garden beds are finally flowering, but how are they going to get pollinated?
Since our beds are caged to prevent mice and squirrels from eating everything, the insects can't get in.  We used mosquito screen for most cages since that's what we had.   We often take the covers off the beds, but by the time we get up it's hot and the insects are gone.
Incredibly, it took me until this morning to realize that we should move the cattails into the garden.

We decided to move the bucket during the day when all the bees are there so that they'll move WITH the bucket.  That did NOT work out as planned and they're still swarming where the bucket used to be.

I hope they'll find the cattails in the garden soon and that they will pollinate our veggies while hanging out at the water.
And while everybody says that most bees here are Africanized, “our” bees are NOT aggressive.   I was a bit scared when I first watered while they were still in the bucket.  A swarm came out of the bucket and all of a sudden there SEEMED to be hundreds.  There probably were about 50 bees and none stung me.
So we'll dig a little pond where we now have the bucket and move some of the new cattail sprouts in it.  This is also a great way to test how well the water proofing with bentonite works.
I never had cattails before and they grow like weeds!
A neighbor recently sent me Bees need water and she wrote that bees are dying in her chicken water and that the bees didn't like the water fountain in her garden.  I left several buckets with water outside yesterday after cleaning pots just  a few feet from where the cattails were.  Apparently they MUCH preferred the cattails and they mostly ignored the water buckets.
I'll update here once the bees — hopefully soon — move to the garden.