Miscellaneous
The schwegler Insect House - Bee Box
Wildlife gardening for most people amounts to hanging up a couple of nut bags and maybe nailing a bird box to a garden shed. But nowadays there seems to be a growing appreciation for the value that the little bits of open space that surround our homes and houses have. Fly low over a typical suburban area and all these little patches of green; our gardens and parks collectively make quite a sizable utility for many wild species that can tolerate us and our noisy ways.
Evolving in close conjunction with this increased awareness is the "science" of wildlife gardening and there are many products becoming available that promise to make your 12 ft square little corner of suburbia a positive utopia for wildlife.Now while many of these claims are true there are also a lot of companies churning out various ill thought out products it seems just to ride on the band wagon and turn a few quid. So with this in mind and the fact that I now have a nice normal garden I am going to try and review on these pages some of the products I have come across and used.
First up is a bit of an unusual one; it's a bee box. Those who have found their way here from my blog will already realise why I'm getting so excited by this product made by the German company Schwegler and distributed in the UK by Jacobi Jayne and Co.
Ok, so it doesn't look pretty but it works really well in my garden, when I returned from holiday the box had only been hanging for about three weeks and it was nearly stuffed full of mud, pollen and a bunch of tiny developing little grubs - next years generation of a very pretty and handy to have around the garden bee known as the Red Mason bee Osmia rufa.
The Bees
When we think of bees we tend to think of the Honey Bee Apis mellifera or Bumble Bees Bombus sp. These insects are truly social and live in large colonies of sisters all working together for their mother the queen. However most species of bee are actually solitary and although they may form loose aggregations are all going about their business independently to each other, the Red Mason Bee is one of these and although they do have a sting you need to actually squish the bee between thumb and index finger to illicit a violent response, so you could say they are pretty mellow and they are not going to make a nuisance of themselves. So forget your obsession with stings and venomous things and see here a furry little early harbinger of spring that is actually a huge use as a pollinator of fruit blossoms around the garden Just to give you an idea of just how useful they are 2 hives worth of Honey Bee (10-25,000 bees) are required to pollinate an acre of apple orchard while only 250 Mason Bees will do the same job! On top of their practical value they also make a fascinating resident and yet another species that with a very simple provision of suitable habitat you can encourage to your garden or yard and with it comes that warm satisfying feeling of sharing your space with these insects.
The Box
Providing for solitary bees and wasps is actually quite simple all you need to do is give them a few cavities these can be plant stems (such as dried Valerian or Hogweed), bamboo canes or simply holes of various dimensions drilled in blocks of wood. Then it's a case of protecting these from the weather in some way while at the same time setting them up in a warm, sunny spot ideally with a south facing aspect.
There are loads of nest boxes available on the market designed to attract these insects and they are all in principle a collection of tubes that lie horizontally in some kind of weather proof shelter, be it a wooden box or an open at one end plastic tube. The Oxford Bee company (which has ceased trading but you can still find the boxes and replacement nest tubes stocked by various wildlife suppliers and garden centres) have one of the higher profiles and are designed specifically to attract this species, they are in essence a plastic tube in at one end jammed full of smaller paper lines cardboard tubes which are of the preferred diameter to be of use to the Red Mason Bee.
They are I feel quite expensive and although I have had a degree of success with them I have also had quite a few problems. I find it difficult in my garden to position the boxes in a sunny spot while at the same time protect them from inclement weather, namely the famous south westerly that regularly batters Dartmoor! The result of this is soggy cardboard tubes. I also get problems with spiders especially if I attach them to the garden shed near the eaves, and as much as I value my arachnids too; they do tend to hog the tubes and of course turn them into death traps for any bee brave enough to take on the sticky threads. By far the biggest issue though are the local Jackdaws which seem to love pulling the cardboard tubes out. In the nesting season they fly off with them presumably to line a neighbour's chimney and out of season they seem to simply have fun scattering them on the lawn, whatever the reason the outcome is the same; few bees actually make a life cycle.
This year however I have a new garden and I have put up all my old Bee boxes and the new Schwegler one (which I noticed in the catalogue is referred to as a device) all quite close to them and I guess the bees voted with their wings because I didn't have a single insect actually complete a cell in the old boxes but the same cannot be said for the new Schwegler device; which as I write this in June is full of baby bees (actually anaemic little grubs all gorging themselves on pollen as we speak) and the best bit is I know this because I can see them!!
The box is listed by the manufacturer as Insects house D.B.P and is a robust outer box made of WOODCRETE (a blend of wood, clay and concrete) which will last for ever and provides a strong, insulated and water proof environment. The front panel is a sheet of wood in which have been drilled 18 holes of two dimensions and fixed into these holes are transparent tubes. With a quick twist of the two threaded clips, it is possible to remove the front panel and view the occupants inside the tubes, which by me makes it the single most useful and interesting nest box for these insects on the market. I mean what a resource for parents and teachers this is! It takes up little space and would have plenty of links into the national curriculum.
I guess the only downside to this box is the price; A whopping £49.95!! But my take on this is that it works and I would rather spend the money on something that does what it says on the box than pay £25-£30 on something that might not (and there are plenty out there which I suspect will not appeal to even a destitute bee down on its luck)
Bees in the Box
The bees once they have found your box will start their coming and going as is the want of bees. Recognising Red Mason Bees is quite easy once you know what you are looking for, if you see a small (approx 1cm to 1.5 cm long) ginger furred little bee hanging out around your box they are fairly likely to be this species as they are very widespread and quite common in gardens.
In the spring these bees emerge from the cells they spent the winter in, they then go in search of each other, the males emerge first and attracted by the pheromones of the female bees they loiter around nests waiting for females to emerge.
The males are recognised by having a blond tuft of hair on the front of their head while the slightly larger females have all black hairs on the head as well as having a bigger squarer heads to accommodate their powerful jaw muscles for all that lifting and excavating and moulding of mud.
First the inspection occurs and you may just see these smallish bees hanging around and entering the holes. In a previously occupied nest or old beetle hole this stage is accompanied by a bit of spring cleaning, with the bee dragging out any loose debris.
The best time to check your bee box (whatever the model) in the early spring (late March onwards) is in the evening as you will notice the female bees roosting in the tubes they look rather snug and content just sitting in the entrance peering out, this way you get a good idea of the numbers of bees using your box. Even though they are Solitary, several bees are often attracted to the same locations as they are all looking for nest holes that meet their requirements.
Soon once they have decided that the nest box conditions are satisfactory they will then start the process of building; collecting fine grains of soil which they mix with saliva to form a mud of the perfect consistency. The great thing about the clear tubes is that you can see the exact process, the end of each tube is first sealed and lined with mud then in sequence the bee, collects pollen which she mixes with a little nectar and creates the first store of food, this appears as a dusty yellow mass and represents somewhere between 8 and 15 journeys to and from early spring flowers which she transports in a "basket" of hairs on the underside of her abdomen called the scopa.
Once she has speculated and accumulated enough provisions she lays a shiny white egg on top of the yellow mass and then resumes collecting more mud to seal it off, she then repeats the process until the entire tube is packed with alternating bands of brown and yellow. The cell nearest the entrance is usually left empty and "corked" off with an extra thick plug of mud. She will then repeat the process until in total she will have created 30-40 cells. Incidentally those cells deepest are likely to become females while those nearer the entrance are smaller and will be the males. Eventually the exhausted female dies and by the end of June few of these bees will be around. In the cells and this can be seen clearly through the clear walls of the tubes, the next generation are well on the way, having hatched out and started gorging themselves on the food provided by the mother they will never see. By mid-August/early September the fully grown larvae having moulted 4 or 5 times will have run out of resources and will pupate. Here in the pupa just like in the Chrysalis of a butterfly the cells of the larva break down and rearrange themselves into the form of the adult bee. By late September/early October the process will be compete and the newly rebuilt bees will be emerging from their pupae, they will not however break out of their cells, but remain in place hibernating in situ until the first warm days of the following spring.
A perfect companion to understanding the bees' that are using your nest box is a handy little book The Red Mason Bee, taking the sting out of bee-keeping by Christopher O'Toole. It is (or was) published by the Oxford bee Company and can still be picked up for a few pounds.