Wild Bee Thingy

[mesquite buckeye]

The Fabulous Darlene wanting something again. : : :

We NEED to make a native bee habitat. To explain a little more, Audubon has a program that recognizes homes that have outstanding wildlife plantings and habitat. Darlene loves to be noticed for pretty much anything.

Anyway, here we go. They have specs for bee habitat. 3/16, 1/4, or 5/16 holes at least 3 inches deep, 1 inch OC. The different hole sizes attract different bee species. So a piece of wood at least 3 1/2" is needed. Alternatively you could use a thinner piece and go in from the edge as long as the board is wide enough.
Darlene starts digging through my wood horde much to my horror and comes up with a piece of shingle oak that we cut and coated with anchor seal for turning blanks from the Missouri farm in 2009.

As a side note that might be helpful to other members. These pieces were tilt stacked so only the edges touched during the cool time of the year (like November) and left inside my 8 X 20 conex (shipping container). This greatly slowed the drying rate and resulted in little or no cracking and no mold. These pieces occupied no more than 5% of the volume of the container and our humidities are naturally pretty low. We did the same thing with pieces exposed to outside air and those cracked badly. Same trees, same sealer.

Shingle oak is heavy like hickory and splits easily. Quite nice lumber red oak group, but redder than average and with splitting tendencies both as lumber and in standing trees. The local loggers call them shakey oak. Mostly used for pallets locally. Often very branchy, similar to pin oak logs. I have been selecting for better formed trees. They are out there.

Shingle oak is also one of the more susceptible trees to Hypoxylon canker. We manage them on my farm since they are probably the most common tree in old field succession along with red cedar. They come up around and under the cedars and eventually kill them. Shingle oaks get replaced by other oaks and hickories over time.

Sorry for the long winded deal. Here it is all done.

 

Just jointed flat and square, drilled on a small drill press 1/4", then finished drilled to 3 1/4" deep with a hand power drill , then finish sanded. Darlene finished it with 1-1 linseed oil-thinner taking care not to oil the holes. I drilled a half inch hole in the back, then stuck a router bit into the hole to widen it out behind the surface for hanging. Pretty easy, just a few hours work.

[LittleJohn]

How wonderful that would look if you had say a 24" tall block off the firewood pile, and drilled holes around it radially??

[mesquite buckeye]

I think that would work. Don't know if they would care if the bark was popping off.

[LaneC]

   Down here, the dirt daubers would fill those holes quickly

[mesquite buckeye]

I've seen them do that in Missouri too. 8)

[WmFritz]

Quite the bee condo. I'm curious of the placement. The south side of my house is pretty much exposed to full sun all day and the wasps love living in the cracks of my ship-lapped cedar siding. I don't notice bees much, other then a honey bee hive that moved in for a week one summer. 

[Ljohnsaw]

 :P

I'm waiting to see what moves in - mud daublers would take over in a heart beat out here, too!

[mesquite buckeye]

They say a mix of shade and sun is best. Out here I think you could cook them if you left them in full sun. I'm putting it up today in a bright shady spot. ;D

[mesquite buckeye]

Here it is installed on the south porch. It is in shade from about 10 am on.

  

 
It is about 8 feet up. Hopefully that will be high enough that we don't get buzzed in the face but low enough that they can find and use it. We shall see. :-\

My dad had one of those over the end of the air compressor hose valve that fills tire valves blow off tools. Sorry, can't think of a better way to describe it. Every summer the little mud wasps fill the blow tube with babies and mud. :-\ :-\ :-\

[btulloh]

My dad had one of those over the end of the air compressor hose valve that fills tire valves blow off tools. Sorry, can't think of a better way to describe it. Every summer the little mud wasps fill the blow tube with babies and mud. :-\ :-\ :-\

Did that keep the wasps from using the blow tube?  If so I'm making a dozen of 'em.

[mesquite buckeye]

Might just make more wasps...

[coxy]

how did the bee hotel work out

[SwampDonkey]

What kind of bees, or are they bees? Bees are only interested in eating and storing food (honey, pollen) and making babies. The fact they pollenate in the process is incidental.  Is that hotel something the experts think bees are after? ;D

[mesquite buckeye]

We are still waiting for them to find it. These are generally bees that are solitary or live in loose associations such as leaf cutter bees. Apparently we have a bunch of kinds. I'm a little concerned that at close to 10 feet up they may have trouble finding it. We had one where I used to work that was full of them all summer.

[square1]

...and making babies....Is that hotel something the experts think bees are after? ;D

and do you rent the holes by the hour?  smiley_huh

[Savannahdan]

If you don't get any bees or wasps to use it you could put small dowels in the holes, extending out to make perches for itty bitty birds. :D

[mesquite buckeye]

We are still waiting for those too. Maybe next season. :(

[caveman]

Any time we melt bees' wax, bees seem to come out of nowhere.  If you grow impatient waiting on bees to inhabit the bee house, a little honey or melted bees' wax may entice them to visit, then again it may not but it would not cost much to try.

[mesquite buckeye]

A good thought, but we gots bees. ;D 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

 

Seems like when they show up they show up in bunches. Pretty cool. You can see several tubes blocked with propolis and maybe a bee sitting deep in one of the top holes. One was sticking his head out right before I snapped this shot.

[mesquite buckeye]

 

 
This little guy was sitting in a hole this morning. Cute.

[SwampDonkey]

Are they some kind of wood boring bee? Make galleries like carpenter ants?

[mesquite buckeye]

These seem to use existing holes. We have some little wasps at the ranch that seem to use old borer holes.

[SwampDonkey]

Ah, nature using what's already provided. Kind of a commensalism, or mutualism.

[mesquite buckeye]

Here are two kinds of bees using the block.

  

 
The bees are really buzzing around it.

[Sparty]

Well, I had to try a version of this after reading the post and doing some research.  We have some very tall grass that is similar to bamboo and happens to have hollow stems similar in diameter to the bee's preferred diameter.  I cut some to length and bundled it together...put it on the side of the barn over summer and sure enough, the bees went to town. So my son and I whipped together a bee house today: