Our Earth Day Project – Rustic Bee Block
April 22, 2010 by Katelyn
Filed under Frugal Mom
Since we’re all focusing on Earth Day, I thought I’d share my bee block with you. I had some wood bees trying to lay eggs in a few holes in my deck that we had to seal up. Since they are such useful little critters and are sort of the American version of the endangered honeybee, I didn’t want to chase them off completely, though. Instead, I got my handy brother excited about helping me make a bee block.
He had a piece of wood for the forge he gave me to use as the base and drilled the holes for the bees to nest in for me. I added the overhang and hanger and then put it out on the fence in an out of the way area. One free and functional bee block. That’s a lot more frugal than the $33 Mason Bee house I saw on Amazon.com!
Fingers crossed that the bees head for their house instead of mine for the rest of the year!
What is your Earth Day project?
That is really neat. Now since these are carpenter bees are they dangerous? Or are you just trying to keep them away?
They aren’t nasty like hornets and yellow jackets. I have a small wood bee variety and the big ones buzzing around and they’re both fuzzy mellow fellows. I guess they’re actually queen bees since they’re looking for sites for nesting. (Can you be a queen bee if you’re a hive of one?)
So, I’m trying to keep them out of the deck boards, but still have them hanging around. Because chickens think they are delicious, I put the block in a different corner of the yard than the vegetable garden and nearby coop area.
I like this idea a lot. Do you put something in the bee block to attract the bees? Or do the bees go in there because of the holes?
The bees go in because of the holes. They like to find holes that beetles made and nest in them.