If you plan for a different fill arrangement, go wild with your shelf spacing. There's lots of other options to fill it in so be creative. I love the bright colors! The most popular colour? Other beneficial insects including wasps and leaf cutter bees may also take up residence. If you really mind the gap, go ahead and get a tube of painters caulk and go wild. Mason Bee Hotel: These days honey bee colonies are under pressure from mites, virusses and pesticides. If it's just a hair taller than the side walls your roof won't fit flush or the floor won't. Depending on where you are in the world, native bee species have life cycles that work with the seasons. First nail the back wall and the sides together making sure the bottoms are flush. The guts of your box will obscure the hole you just drilled in your back wall. Habitat loss and insecticide usage (including mosquito spraying) are particularly detrimental to these populations and they're disappearing fast. It helps to make a reference mark directly on your miter saw guide so you don't need to keep measuring. A few days after I hung the construction in my garden, the first bees moved in. When you're ready to hang the box, choose a spot that gets some nice morning sun. (no primer). Share it with us! I usually need to plane them down a hair so they fit perfectly. Maybe not the mason bees, I don't know. We want this piece to be a bit shorter than the tall end of the side walls to keep assembly easy. Nail the bottom shelf flush with the other pieces. Did you scroll all this way to get facts about mason bee hotel? If done correctly, the top of your back wall should be just a little lower than the side walls. This looks really cool. We all want fresh food right?!?!!:). Now that your wood is cut, it's time for assembly with the pneumatic nailer. Well you're in luck, because here they come. We've sent you an email to confirm your subscription. Find out more in our Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy. Looks like you already have an account! The roof is made out of recycled plastic shingles which are used for protecting cables burried in the ground. Thanks! Watch as solitary bees investigate your finished bee hotel in the spring. When the native bees start to nest, they'll overnight in their unfinished tubes and the warm sun in the morning gets their day started earlier. Mason Bee Hotel: Our native bees are extremely important pollinators and often forgotten about! Bamboo is a great option because there are lots of different diameters already without a ton of drilling on your part. She's in business. Nail into place with 4 finish nails into the wall pieces. I like to use 2X4 chunks cut at 4.5" and then drilled with lots of holes. You can use random scraps of … You guessed it: brown. I picked the colors just for aesthetics. The lesson here is just cut it a little short and move on with your life. I plan to use this. Set where you live, what language you speak and the currency you use. (I stick 2 nails though each of the side walls and one through the back. These days honey bee colonies are under pressure from mites, virusses and pesticides. We put the top shelf at a height to cater for 2 2x4's stacked on each other. A little help from mason bees will certainly be appreciated in orchards and gardens. Take full advantage of our site features by enabling JavaScript. Learn more. If they're minor, the paint job and inner components will make it hardly noticeable. Native bees vary greatly in size; the bigger the bee, the larger the diameter and greater depth they require for their nest hole. I've actually read that dark colors may draw the bees towards the cavities they seek out but bees still come to my boxes. This is a good way to help them for helping me. Both outcomes are bad and you probably won't realize this until your bee box is half assembled. Great! These technologies are used for things like interest based Etsy ads. There was a problem subscribing you to this newsletter. Did you make this project? Jon Hawkins, Surrey Hills Photography. I use 16 gauge finish nails that are 1 1/4" long. Small Bee Hotel for Solitary Wild Bees, Made of Wood and Bamboo, For Mason and Leafcutter Bees, Tunnel Or Cavity Nesting Bees, Natural TheSpartanWoodshop 4.5 out of 5 stars Have you found that this helps draw bees into towards your garden or plants? Participated in the 2nd Annual Krylon Summer Contest. The advantage of this system is that used tubes can easily be replaced. We do this with marketing and advertising partners (who may have their own information they’ve collected). This is a very good thing! Color choice is up to you. A little help from mason bees will certainly be appreciated in orchards and gardens. Because of the slight differences in the stock wood and also your cutting skills, some of the shelves may not sit exactly flush with the box and gaps may appear. Slightly smaller than honeybees, mason bees are peaceful and amazing pollinators visiting as many as 1000 blooms per day. This little project is also fun to watch when action is going on. The bamboo and other box innards would block the paint job anyways so forget about it. Mason Bee Hotels Our first official meeting via Zoom was held last Tuesday. Step Two: Add “Rooms” The hotel “rooms” are nothing more than holes drilled into blocks of wood. For drilling the holes, an auger bit is far better than a spade bit, forstner bit, or standard drill bit in terms of staying sharp and ease of drilling. Because we were careful and made the bottom all flush, you can stick your mason bee house on a table top but it's also really nice to have the option to hang it up. Push the shelves into place, making sure the lines match up and the box compartments look like they're in square. With the box flat on its back, stick the top in place and by eye, get it so its equally overhanging the left and right side of the box. Saying no will not stop you from seeing Etsy ads, but it may make them less relevant or more repetitive. Yes! They'll find pre-existing holes to lay eggs in so really anything that's breathable with varying hole diameters of 5/16" or less works perfect. 3 years ago. Etsy uses cookies and similar technologies to give you a better experience, enabling things like: Detailed information can be found in Etsy’s Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy and our Privacy Policy. Reply Send me exclusive offers, unique gift ideas, and personalised tips for shopping and selling on Etsy. on Introduction. This isn't an area for the solitary bees to nest in but can provide a safe space for lots of other beneficial critters to crawl into and hang out. Make a pencil mark on the front edge of the box, lines that are 4" and 8" from the bottom of the box. Let dry and then sand smooth along with any other rough edges on the box. The depth of the tube determines how many eggs will be laid and also what sex they'll be (based on position in the tube.... males are closer to the front). In the picture, I've included some dimensions OR see below. I like that you are thinking about the bees! When painting, you don't need to paint any farther than an inch or so inside the box. Hanging your bee mansion: Hang your hotel on a sunny wall, sheltered from rain. Because of the 5 degree cut we did earlier, this piece won't sit flush with the table you're assembling it on but that's just fine. Thanks to skilled technical management a social time was accomplished after the presentation. Since you cut directly from the 1X6X8 board, it too will have an edge that's cut at 5 degrees already so you can now adjust your saw for 90 degree cuts again. The cans are emptied , rinsed, spraypainted and filled with bamboo or reed cut to length with a metal saw. From the 1X6, measure and cut a 6" piece on the saw at 90 degrees. If it's water based, I like to thin my filler just a little with some water to make spreading and filling in holes a lot faster. NOTE...You could think about that 5 degree cut you did for the walls and cut this piece so it's flush with the walls. The reason for this is bees lay multiple eggs in each tube. If you try to get the back and roof to fit perfectly together, you'll need to consider that 5 degree cut you made earlier. It's easiest to do this now since they'll be slightly inset after assembly. On the 1X4, measure 4.5" pieces and cut them at 90 degrees. on Introduction. I stick 3 nails in each wall and they hold together just fine. On your piece of 1X6, measure and mark 12" and cut directly from your 1X6X8 Board with a miter saw at 5 degrees. Any bigger and the bees won't use the holes. The bees are suffering from a disease that kills them, around the world. Australia | English (UK) | $ (AUD), remembering account, browser, and regional preferences, remembering privacy and security settings, personalised search, content, and recommendations, helping sellers understand their audience, showing relevant, targeted ads on and off Etsy. Keep in mind if you go this route, the 2X4's will probably just barely not fit between the walls. I like having gentle bees that don't make honey (I couldn't manage to keep up with a hive for health reasons) but still pollinate everything in sight. Cut out the pesticides… Cut out the pesticides first, then boost your garden's productivity by providing a happy nesting site for solitary bees. My grand kids love to see the bees rolling around in "flower dust". This little hotel is made of recycled material. Share it with us! Go ahead and nail the shelves into place through the walls. Our native bees are extremely important pollinators and often forgotten about! As you vary your holes sizes in a decreasing diameter, you start catering to a different species of native bees. Because we use untreated wood (so bees don't need to be around chemicals) I like to use the best quality exterior paint. If you can make a bee hotel, the female mason bee will come to you! There are 40 mason bee hotel for sale on Etsy, and they cost AU$61.47 on average. No need to plug the back end, the bees know how to do it.
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