Tag Archives: bee nests

Making a small sand mound for mining bees to nest in

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Step by step guide

  • 1. Find a sunny, warm area 1m2 and clear it of vegetation.
  • 2. Lay a base of gravel for good drainage
  • 3. Bees prefer loamy soil, but if you don’t have any try to replicate loamy soil by mixing one bag of builders’ sand with 2 bags of top soil to get a good consistency that binds together.
  • 4. Add it little by little on top of the gravel, layer by layer, patting it down as you go.
  • 5. Keep going until you have a 400mm high mound.
  • 6. Add some large stones/pebbles to the base as some bees may bask on them to warm up, or they may shelter underneath or behind on windy days, or make their holes in between the stones.
  • 7. Monitor to see if any holes are made and who may be nesting in your sand mound.

Thanks to Dr Konstantinos Tsiolis, whose PhD was on nesting sites for mining bees, for his advice and help with this project.

Large-headed resin bees

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Large-headed resin bees (Heriades truncorum) make their nests in a pre-existing cavity in wood. You can create suitable nesting sites by drilling holes in blocks of wood like this one we saw at John Little’s house a few years ago. He runs the Grass Roof Company and has pioneered incorporating nest sites for solitary bees on roofs and walls. He uses his own home and gardens as a test bed.

After she has laid her eggs in the cavity, this robust. solitary bee plugs it with tiny bits of grit and stone she collects and then glues it all together with resin collected from nearby trees. Here’s the bee in action…it’s like fitting together pieces of a jigsaw, or making a mosaic – quite amazing!!! And the next generation of resin bees have to break through the ‘door’ when they emerge next year.