Building a Native Bee Box

I've been wanting to do this for over a year, build a nesting box for native bees and other insects. My friend Doug Welch from A Gardener's Notebook had sent me various plans and ideas. I had a wooden wine box with a sliding lid and it seemed perfect.


Finding the western bumble bee nest in one of my bird houses finally prompted me to just do it.

I drilled holes of 3/8", 1/2" and 5/8" in the lid. Different bee species prefer different size holes. Then I filled the box with hay and dog hair. These were the kinds of fibers in the bird house that the bumble bees had liked.

I mounted two hooks on the back of the box so I could hang it on the fence at the side of the garden. 

In this location we can see any activity at the nest box, it is near the vegetable garden, but it is out of the way enough that people won't be crossing any bee traffic. We probably won't see any action until spring, but we finally have our bee nest box up.