{"id":1111,"date":"2015-08-22T14:38:36","date_gmt":"2015-08-22T13:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2018-08-21T10:16:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T09:16:20","slug":"creating-homes-for-solitary-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/?p=1111","title":{"rendered":"Creating homes for solitary bees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty five new solitary bee homes will be going up in gardens, parks and on balconies around De Beauvoir in the next few weeks following a ‘how to make a bee hotel’ free workshop yesterday run by Urban Bees for the Hackney community.<\/p>\n

\"workshoppublicity\"<\/a> \"4.busyworkshop\"<\/a>\"6.paintingtable\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Held at St Peter’s Church, the frames for the bee hotels were made from old, wooden organ pipes kindly donated by the church. <\/a> Old floor boards were srewed in for the backing.<\/p>\n

\"1.dcaterscrewinginnails\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Local residents donated the bamboo stems, from their gardens, in which the solitary bees will hopefully make their nests come the spring.<\/p>\n

Those confident with a hack saw cut the hollow stems into 15cm length pieces.<\/p>\n

\"3.readinginstructions\"<\/a> \"2.fionasawing\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For others, Brian had cut hundreds of pieces earlier in true Blue Peter style ready to fit inthe frames.<\/p>\n

\"4.cramminginthebamboo\"<\/a>\"5.vicarmakingabeehotel\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Young participants painted their bee hotels fantastic bright colours. <\/a> A budding Pollock and Rothko perhaps!<\/p>\n

\"7.jackpainting\"<\/a>\"8.Pollockbeehotel\"<\/a> \"9.Rothkobeehotel\"<\/a> \"10.lovebees\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s no good just taking your hotel home, fixing it firmly to a shed or wall or fence in a warm location, at least 1 metere above ground. The red mason bees need forage from March to July. <\/a> It’s as important as proving habitat where they can nest and lay eggs.<\/p>\n

So everyone left with a bee-friendly plant, mainly Forget-me-nots (myostis) from my garden which supply the solitary bees with nectar and pollen. And some pulmonaria from Diana Jackson’s garden.<\/p>\n

\"11.beehabitatandforage\"<\/a> \"12.carolinebeehotelandmyotosis\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Everyone had a fantastic afternoon. I gave a short talk about solitary bees – the unsung heros of the bee world.<\/p>\n

“I never knew bees were so fascinating,” said Julia Porter, St Peter’s vicar and now a proud owner of a bee hotel made with her own hands that will go into the vicarage garden.<\/p>\n

Hackney council gardener, Craig Davies, will be putting three up in De Beavoir Square.<\/p>\n

Special thanks to Gillian Borrie for helping with the refreshments and Ruth Napolitano for taking donations to cover the costs of the event. <\/a> And for Diana Weir for coming up with the idea in the first place.<\/p>\n

Everyone went home very happy to be doing something positive for bees locally. <\/a> The red mason bees and leafcutter bees will be emerging next month and looking for new homes. <\/a> Workshop participants hope to share photos of bees checking-in to their hotels.<\/p>\n

\"13.russelbeehotel\"<\/a> \"completedbeehotel\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the first of a series of events that Urban Bees will be involved in, designed to make the De Beauvoir neighbourhood of Hackney more bee and pollinator -friendly. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty five new solitary bee homes will be going up in gardens, parks and on balconies around De Beauvoir in the next few weeks following a ‘how to make a bee hotel’ free workshop yesterday run by Urban Bees for the Hackney community. Held at St Peter’s Church, the frames for the bee hotels were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanbees.co.uk\/blog_1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}