Em's Bee Hotel

Bee hotels are a place for solitary bees to nest, rest and breed (not honey bees who make there own nests). I like the quirky and interesting look of a bee hotel and also the thought of maybe attracting the beneficial creature so made one for my Mother-in-Law who has a garden full of quirky interesting things and bee attracting plants. I really like these ones my Dad made so used it as inspiration. Gardening Australia has some great info and specifics for making a bee hotel. 

I used gathered or recycled materials from around our place to create the whole bee hotel. Firstly, I put together a house shaped box with back from scrap wood and covered the roof with some metal to give a little more shelter. The depth is about 15cm. Then cut some scrap untreated firewood blocks to fit the house and drilled different sized holes (they should range from 3-8mm) to a depth of the drill bit (about 10cm)

To attract a variety of bees and for the visual interest, I filled a bit of scrap steel tube with clay from our garden and poked holes in it. I then arranged the wood and pipe filling in the spaces with bamboo I cut from our plants about 10cm with an enclosed joint at the back end. I then collected some sticks to fill in more spaces jamming it in tight so it wouldn't fall apart.

I like all the different textures, shapes and colours created by the different materials (sticks, hollow bamboo, wood, clay pipe etc.) The bamboo holes are probably too small and the sticks should probably have been from pithy stems so I don't know how well it will work as a bee hotel but I think it looks cool!

It should face North-East-ish in sunny/semi-shaded sheltered position between 1-2m off the ground

Em's Knitted Blanket #3

As soon as I had cast off my last knitted blanket I cast a new one on still using a lot of the beautiful yarns I had. This one I decided was for my Step-Mum's 60th who complimented my first knitted blanket. I used the same technique with a mix of yarn weights, 2 yarns each row, leaving the ends for tassels and not using any furry yarns.

I tried to base it more on the aqua and green colours with added dark purple (since I had so much purple) and touches of orange. It turned out a bit brighter, more colourful and a bit more block-stripey. It took me 2 years with a little help from a little Bubby. 

The needles are empty for the moment. I think I've made enough knitted blankets for a while and it has become a lot harder to find the time with a little Bubby. Although I do have a Mother-in-law who hasn't got one..?

Related posts:

Em's Knitted Blanket #1	Em's Knitted Blanket #2
Em's Frayed Denim  Patchwork Picnic Rug	Em's Jumper/Sweater Blanket