Poorly chicken

[Chucky Mama]

I am resigned to the fact that I am way off being able to keep bees but would like to do my bit in the garden. Are these any good? **CLICK**

[Olly]

That's really pretty - whether you'd get bumbles nesting in it, I don't know - they seem to love bird-boxes with an old nest in, so maybe a bit of straw/dried grass or something would encourage them? It would look lovely anyway, even if you didn't get bumble bees in it!

[Mrs Potts]

Hi.

 

I'd love a hive but we don't have enough room, so my husband bought me something similar to this about two years ago. It was a wooden box with a hole in it on the side and a lift up lid. We have never had a bee in it, but have managed to raise generations of very happy earwigs and the hedgehog now uses it as a step from the lawn down onto the patio!

 

Last year, we bought a wooden house filled with bamboo tubes which has a sloping, waterproof roof and fixes to a fence panel. The top two thirds of the space is bamboo tubes and the bottom half is a solid block with holes drilled into it. It is about 30 cm square. I put it up about 4 feet up, on a south-ish facing fence. I noticed a bee interested within about three days. She filled five tubes with eggs and sealed them with mud. No other takers last year, but this year ...

 

They all hatched - I spent a magical afternoon at the end of April watching one of the tubes gradually being broken open by the bee inside. Within about two days of the hatching, there were bees swarming in and out. All solitary bees, I think but within about six to eight weeks, all 35 or so tubes had been filled and sealed. Then they started laying in the gaps between the bamboo tubes and the side of the house and then filled each of the 18 holes drilled into the wooden block below.

 

I have also tried a plastic bee house that is shaped like a plantpot, but you place it horizontally (on the ground under the gas meter!) and it is sealed at one end. It and the tubes are quite narrow so I was doubtful, but 18 tubes have been filled and sealed so this seems quite good too. Bamboo tubes that are open both ends and have been a disaster for me. I have three and just one tube has been filled out of the twenty or so available, so Worcestershire bees don't like open ends.

 

So, good luck, and persevere. I hope you get lucky if you go for the bee house you have shown, but I am just about to buy another of each type that have been more successful for me.

[Guest]

No better than an upturned flower pot, drainage hole covered and an entrance (piece of pipe which would not get flooded)). Most bumble bee nests are only used once, but the ceramic ones are at least able to be sterilised.

 

The nests for the solitary bees is a fab idea. Every one should have at least one of those, so cheap and easy to make.

 

Regards, RAB

[Chucky Mama]

Thanks, that all makes perfect sense. More style than content it would appear. Any tips or plans on DIY solitary bee nests? - if not too hard I could maybe make a job lot for Christmas presents

[Old Speckled Hen]

We have dry stone walls bounding our garden and we get lots of nesting bees.

I went to Tatton Park flower show and the Cheshire Wildlife Trust had an invertebrate habitat made out of pallets.

see here http://www.cheshirewildlifetrust.co.uk/documents/advice_invertebrate_habitat2.pdf.

Grandson and I are going to have a go next year.

 

Thanks, that all makes perfect sense. More style than content it would appear. Any tips or plans on DIY solitary bee nests? - if not too hard I could maybe make a job lot for Christmas presents

These are a couple of less grandiose plans

http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/insects-bee-hotel/

http://www.buglife.org.uk/Resources/Buglife/Create%20a%20bee%20hotel%20.pdf

 

Great idea for prezzies.

Another good idea might be membership of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/

It costs only £12 per year and you get lots of free info and charts.

[Chucky Mama]

Fantastic links OHS, thank you. I love the pallet idea I will definitely be having a go at a bee hotel and will see if I can persuade OH or the children to give me a hand with a pallet.

[Old Speckled Hen]

Ooooh I forgot. The London Wetland Centre in Barnes has a wonderful wildlife habitat wall to aspire to, if you're ever that way it's a great place to spend an afternoon.

[MammaT]

I moved to this house in July of last year and last September our front garden was taken over by mining bees. They all buzzed around for weeks and tunnelled everywhere. This spring we damaged some of the larvae as we had to plant up the veggies but loads still hatched out and buzzed off.

 

This year even more have arrived. The garden looks like it's moving! We will need to do some digging etc over winter so I wondered if it was worth getting some of the above mentioned habitats to see if some can be encouraged to lay there instead. I'd also heard dried mud blocks work??? I don't want to kill the larvae but I do need to work on the veggie patch.

 

We garden organically - do you think this could make a difference to the bees?

Any ideas would be appreciated as I know they're not bumble bees but still count as pollinators so I feel they're important and would love as many as possible to hatch out in Springtime.

[Old Speckled Hen]

The easiest thing you can do is to make patches of bare or sp"Ooops, word censored!"ly vegetated ground, especially where you have friable or sandy soil. South facing banks are ideal. Most bare areas will gradually cover over with vegetation, so it is useful to make new bare patches, next to the older patches every two or three years - a sort of patch rotation system. A mossy lawn is good too! Also a closely mown lawn seems to work well, but is not essential, as long as there are patches of shorter or sp"Ooops, word censored!"ly vegetated lawn, this will often attract mining bees.

 

Can you factor in this sort of area in your garden?

[MammaT]

Reading that I can see why they're here! My front garden is the veggie patch but as this is our first year not everything has been cultivated or even turned over. An elderly lady lived here previously and she had struggled with the garden as she got older so all the borders are compacted and like concrete. We're gradually working through them, turning and removing heavily congested bulbs but, as the soil is sandy, that would explain why the bees are so attracted.

 

I'm happy to let them have some of the garden each year as I'm more than pleased to have them around to pollinate. I'll factor them in as we go along so they'll have some patches each year - I just hope we don't kill too many of the larvae with our necessary winter/spring workings. Having said that there are definitely more of them here this year so I can't have killed that many this spring.

 

Thank you for the advice. I actually love having them as I feel I must be doing something right!

 

Teresa.