Encouraging Solitary Bees

This weekend there was a food festival in Hull. I eat food, so does prettymuch everyone I know, so I went along with a couple of friends for a rather fine burger, a pint of Blonde and a little Pimms complete with cucumber. Popping into Wilkinson's on the way home I spotted some insect boxes. They're actually extremely easy things to make yourself and I have a couple kicking about somewhere in the garden. These were fairly aesthetically pleasing tho so I threw caution to the wind, dashed the expense and purchased a Bee & Ladybird Box. Basically it's a few short hollow bamboo canes and a block of wood with smalled holes drilled in it. The hollow canes are for various solitary bees to nest in, and the holes are for ladybirds. Ladybirds are carnivorous so they should be good for the garden -barring a little home made pepper spray if the aphids are getting out of hand I generally let nature to control the pests for me rather than throwing chemicals all over my garden.

Hostel for solitary bees and ladybirds

It's made from some kind of softwood so I decided to waterproof the roof and back of the box with a little bitumen paint. Then as per the brief instructions found a location for it on a south facing wall. It's actually quite near the hives. I was a little apprehensive abut using a hammer drill so close to the bees but it turned out they weren't bothered by it -although they later took exception to the new lawn mower I've recently acquired and planted a sting in the sleeve of my Zombie Ghost Train tshirt. Grr.. Anyway will it be used or won't it? Time will tell.