Long time no bee!
It’s been some time since last we updated, but in that time we can confirm that Patrick has cut our bamboo down to size, and it has dried! So in the next week or two we’ve set a goal to each prepare some kinda frame to stick our cut bamboo in to hang. According to John, he has several places in mind for them to hang across the street from the greenhouse. We aim to have these ready by April 19th!
Meanwhile, we took advantage of the extra class time to go down to the greenhouse and make some bee huts! These are for solitary bees such as bumblebees. Our bamboo houses are for bees like the honey bee, who make individual nests in small holes.
To make these huts, we first mixed equal parts peat moss, perlite, and Portland concrete. Once thoroughly blended, we added water, and kept mixing until the mixture started to clump together. Then we were ready.
The necessities for our huts are twofold: an open space in the center, and a tunnel for bees to get in from outside to this nest area. To accomplish these, we first took a small flower pot and turned it upside down to use as a base. Making the tunnel was simple enough. We cut a small piece of PVC pipe, and cut a small hole in our pots to fit the pipe into. From there, we could go to work moulding our peat/perlite/Portland mixture around the pot and tube.
Now we could let our creativity run wild. Jamie decided to make a lion paw, and I went a bit more ambitious with mine. Now I’m no artist, but I wanted to make a Nittany lion head. It was difficult, especially moulding the ears, but after Jamie pulled up a reference on her phone, I think I managed a decent product.
Now that our huts are finished, we covered them up and left. According to John, they need to dry slowly over the next week. The longer they dry, the stronger they will become. Once dry, they will go on a solid, clean surface, where we can leave some dryer lint inside for bees to nest in. The hollow construction allows for them to be easily cleaned – just lift up, and go.
We’ve dedicated the weekend to working on our individual portions of our research paper, as well as planning for our class project time next week. We hope to produce an interesting, informative poster for display on April 19th! The center display will focus on pictures and descriptions of our work up to this point, and we’re planning to fill the folds with pictures and descriptions of bees native to the area, information about pesticides threatening bees, and information on how to provide habitat to bees! Stay tuned for more information! BEE good!