gaiatechnician
07-23-2010, 02:52 AM
Honey bees are not the only type of bees. Most types are solitary or live in very small groups. In BC Canada, the garden shops sell little wood blocks with holes drilled in them and plastic tubes all made to be perfect for blue orchard mason bees. But, what about all the other types? They need homes too! My first attempt to help was by drilling different sized holes in wood blocks. This ends up fairly hard to do. The drill bits need to be long, over 4 inches so humming birds do not stick in their tongues and eat the little baby bees as snacks. It is possible but you have to buy a set of the long drill bits (and have a good drill) So this year I took a different approach. I made a block of cob (clay sand and straw mixed up with water to the thickness of stiff icecream and I inserted all sorts of different metal bars, spokes, knitting needles and then let it dry out and go hard. Before it got too hard, I took out the metal to leave a hole for the bees. Sure enough they came and took shelter in the holes. Lately they have been filling them with their eggs and capping the holes off. There are at least 3 types of bees involved.
Cob bee block mark 2 has hollow stems of plants and weeds as part of the structure. They are inserted and covered over with cob. Then the bees, (if they prefer) can use the stems too and they are both safe from birds and safe from composting. At least 2 types of bees in my garden like to burrow inside old raspberry canes. So raspberry canes and grape vine old wood are part of the mix too! I have several videos about it. Here is one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkFjcoqI1gU and I will try to attach a photo here of one of the bees that shelter in my first bee blocks. http://transitionvictoria.ning.com/photo/wasp-imitator-bee?context=album&albumId=5043327%3AAlbum%3A4299
Brian
Cob bee block mark 2 has hollow stems of plants and weeds as part of the structure. They are inserted and covered over with cob. Then the bees, (if they prefer) can use the stems too and they are both safe from birds and safe from composting. At least 2 types of bees in my garden like to burrow inside old raspberry canes. So raspberry canes and grape vine old wood are part of the mix too! I have several videos about it. Here is one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkFjcoqI1gU and I will try to attach a photo here of one of the bees that shelter in my first bee blocks. http://transitionvictoria.ning.com/photo/wasp-imitator-bee?context=album&albumId=5043327%3AAlbum%3A4299
Brian