| Christine | Farmer |

Why attract leaf-cutter bees?

Quite a few people on Twitter have been asking me about my solitary bees since I started posting photographs of them hatching, so I thought I’d write a post to answer some of the most common questions. Leaf-cutter bees are incredible creatures to encourage into your garden or allotment – great to observe and look after, and they are wonderful pollinators. This kind of bee is a ‘solitary bee‘ which does not form a hive or make honey, but works alone, although they will nest side-by-side and not fight or compete. They are in fact perfect bees for the garden, and safe around children as they do not store honey and so have nothing to ‘defend’ from attack. They are quite happy to let you go right up to the nest to see what they’re doing, as you can see from these shots of a bee hatching in my garden this week (click for a closer view):

   

What do the bees do in the tubes..?

The tubes are just the right size to allow the bees to easily construct their nest cells, which they make from circles of leaves. The bees fly out into your garden, cut perfect circles from your rose bush leaves (see also photo below, third from left), and fly back to the nest. You can follow them around your garden as they do this! Once back at the nest, the bee will curl up the circle of leaf, and take it into the tube with her. A bee will need many leaf circles to make each cell, since she lines the sides of the tube as well as sealing both ends of each cell with many layers of leaves. Before she seals each cell, she lays one egg, and puts food of pollen ‘bee bread’ to enable the hatched larvae to eat and grow during the time the cell is sealed. All of these activities can be observed by watching the tubes during the summer. Also fun to watch are the females bees clearing out old tubes at the beginning of the season; kicking out old leaf-debris in previously-used tubes, or removing the paper inserts from newer tubes (see photo below, second from left). These bees prefer to re-use an old tube rather than re-line a completely new one with leaves, and will ignore new tubes if there are any empty, weather-beaten tubes to re-colonise!

The life-cycle of leaf-cutter bees, in brief: The young bees emerge from their nests in June, and mate. After this the males die, and the females begin the work of nesting and laying eggs. Once sealed into the cells the eggs hatch, and the larvae feed on the ‘bee bread’, grow, pupate and develop into the bees which then hatch almost a year after they were laid as eggs. These newly-hatched bees mate, lay their eggs, and die before the summer is over, never seeing their off-spring.

How can I start encouraging solitary bees into my garden?

Where to buy the nests: The Oxford Bee Company who originally sold the cylinders and tubes is no longer trading, but cylinders and tubes can be purchased from various places online, for example WigglyWigglers and CJ Wildbird Foods. Or search online for ‘Oxford Bee Company’ for other suppliers. You can also make nests yourself out of old garden canes and similar stems, or by drilling holes in a block of wood, and these are successful. But I have found that the bees can be a little fussy about the diameter of hole they prefer, and many of the tubes may go unused if they are too big or too small – however these may be used by other bees or insects. I have had mason bees (which make their cells out of mud) nesting alongside the leaf-cutters in my nests.

Siting: The first year I tried the cylinders I attached them to a sunny wooden fence, but while there was some interest from bees that summer, none of them nested. I have since found that the bees do not particularly like the tubes when they are new, and prefer them to be somewhat weathered. However, I have also heard that the vibrations caused by the fence moving in the wind may also have discouraged them from settling. So I have followed advice to place the cylinders in a stable and sunny spot, a few feet from the ground, and preferably somewhere the tubes won’t get wet.

   

Plants to grow: There is a very useful site here which lists the kinds of plants that bees love. Obviously, leaf-cutters also like roses from which to harvest nest material, but they will use other similar plants and of course fly around the neighbourhood in order to locate suitable leaves! And equally obviously don’t use chemical sprays in the garden, as these are poisonous to bees; consider gardening Organically with wildlife controls, barriers, etc., it really is the only way if you want to encourage any kind of wildlife.

Over winter: Once the summer is over and the tubes are all sealed, you will need to put the cylinders somewhere dry and cool for the bees to over-winter. A garden shed seems ideal, but don’t forget to take them out again next Spring! Once Spring comes, re-position your cylinders where they were the previous year, and wait for the new bees to hatch. My leaf-cutters begin to hatch in the first weeks of June, towards Midsummer.

Lastly: Don’t be discouraged if no bees nest in the first year. It may well take a little while for them to find the nests and settle in. Also, you will find that if you stop spraying chemicals in your garden, and plant more of the bee-friendly plants, you will see a definite increase in bees and other interesting wildlife in your garden anyway!

Some links:

Learn more about helping bees by following the tweets of @JordansBigBuzz and @HelpSaveBees who post lots of bee news and information every day.

Follow me on Twitter.

Also, check out these articles on solitary bees, the best plants to grow for bees, and the Co-Op site on saving bees.

Follow this link to see all posts on leaf-cutter bees.

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Above: Stages of work on the studio drawing – the final piece can be seen below.

When I was young I always wanted a little place at the bottom of the garden to which I could retreat and take my books, notepaper and pens, and found items such as the stones, shells, feathers and other objects that still fascinate me.  Now I have managed to create that retreat as somewhere to work, to imagine, and to get my ideas out on paper in words and images.

My new work concentrates on the need we have to create and retreat to our own spaces, whether they be dolls’ houses, childhood dens under a hedge, or the garden shed. I think it’s an impulse entirely natural to us; something like animals creating their own homes in trees and hedgerows, and furnishing them with feathers, moss, leaves and sometimes more decorative items. I suppose this is one reason I am interested in birds’ nests, bees creating their little cells and storing pollen, and even in the tunnels of the ants’ nest under a stone.

   

Above: Some of my garden wildlife – click for larger images.

Six months ago, I set my mind on a completely new career in Art. I had been drawing again after a hiatus of two decades, re-visiting my early fascination with extremely detailed pen and ink work, and I came to realise that this was something I’d love to do on a full-time basis: but where? Up until then I’d been using the dining table for drawing, and storing my paper and drawings in portfolios behind the sofa. I knew that if I wanted to approach this professionally I’d need to find space for a full-sized drawing table and map chest at minimum. And preferably more space to allow for cutting, storage of art materials and a computer and printer. I needed a place for thinking and doing; somewhere which would be entirely devoted to all phases of the creative process from staring out of the window, onwards.

I’d already been using the tiny summerhouse as a place to sketch during the summer, but being small and either damp from the rain or baking in the sunshine (and often full of tomato plants) it was no place for paper! I began thinking of a much larger garden shed, did some searches online, and discovered a whole new world of ‘garden offices’ , gyms and saunas and all sorts of structures that could be erected in just a few days. I decided to turn the available space at the end of the garden over to a brand new purpose-built studio; a place which would be a world away from drawing on the dining room table when household activities permitted.

  

Above: Working on the dining room table, and the old summerhouse.

In a matter of weeks we’d had a site visit from one of the building companies, and discussed with them exactly what size building could be squeezed into the tiny space available, and what features I could have. Having everything to hand, in a beautifully sunlit, warm, dry atmosphere was the vision, and  I chose a higher-than standard ceiling (though it still seems only ‘adequate’ to me – I can’t bear low ceilings!), full windows along the south-facing entrance, and two more on the eastern side. In less than a month the structure was made in their factory, and then erected here on site in just under three days. By Christmas I had my studio, with electricity, heating, Internet access and plenty of space.

Click here to see the before and after photographs of the building process.

The next step was to furnish it with a drawing table and other necessary furniture. I bought and re-covered the drawing table, a complete bargain on Ebay, and also the map chest which is from around the 1950s and beautifully constructed. Then it was time to start deciding on a computer on which to write my all-important artist’s web-site; the process of which will be the subject of a future blog post.

   

Above: The finished studio.

After working here now for a few months I can say that the decision to have the studio built was probably one of the best I’ve ever made, as it really is no exaggeration to say it has changed my life completely. I absolutely love the peace and quiet of the setting, which is right in the heart of the garden with all its life and action: something not even visible from the house because of the layout of the terraced property. Now every day I’m at work is enlivened with animal and bird activity, from the inquisitive squirrel staring in through the window to the strange scrabbling of the pigeons on the roof. Even rainy days become interesting with frogs flinging themselves from the pond in search of lunch! Coffee breaks can be taken on the decking overlooking the pond or staring at passing clouds, and the home commute is blissful.

Living in the Midlands, I’m about as far as you can get from the sea in Britain, and yet my garden has something of the feel of the coast because of my love and collection of shells and pebbles. Dad loved to sail, and I have remnants of his little boat all around the garden; the mast and boom provide climbing frames for hops and vines, and this last picture of my ‘commute home’ (above) shows part of his small anchor. Everywhere I look there are things to fascinate and remind me of why I do what I do. All these objects, and the setting, are of vital importance to the creation of my work, which is all about memory, remains and place.

 

The Studio, Stourbridge: Graphite on paper, 2009.

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