Building a Bee House

Mason Bees (Osmia) are smaller than honeybees, and great pollinators in your garden. They do not sting. They build nests inside hollow tubes, where the female lays one egg, then mixes nectar and pollen with wood shavings and deposits it into the tube. Then, she lays another egg, and repeats the process. She lays female-destined eggs in the back of the nest, and male eggs towards the front. She caps off the end of each tube with a kind of wax. As the eggs hatch, the larvae eat their provision of pollen/nectar/wood pellet to gain energy. By the summer, the larva has consumed all of its provisions and begins spinning a cocoon around itself and enters the pupal stage, and the adult matures either in the fall or winter, hibernating inside its cocoon.

I thought I might try to make a bee house for these little bees. Instead of buying wood and drilling holes in it, and being of the mind to reuse rather than throw out some Salvia apiana (White Bee Sage) flower stalks after they had flowered (and fed many a hummingbird and Carpenter Bee), I thought I might cut them and dry them to see if the tubes would work. The stems are hollow and reed-like, of varying diameters.

 

 

I cut the long flower stalk just below where the flowers end, where it joins the rest of the plant.

There were plenty of leaves that can be dried for making sage bundles for smudging.

I cut the stalks into 4-6 inch sections. Where the flower stems grew at the node, it narrowed down the space in the tube.

 I took a metal skewer and carefully hollowed out the inside of the tubes.

 

I used flexible green garden tape to hold them all together.

 

 Here is the house, attached to the side of my pygmy palm near the house. It is shaded, but gets morning sun. I have no idea if it will work, but I will keep you all posted! Happy Pollinating!

 

 

Salvia/Sage and Artemisia - add some silver & lace to the Garden

I have two different varieties of Artemisia growing in my garden. There are many varieties, from annuals to perennials and even shrubs that comprise this plant family. They bring in some welcome neutral color, and their lacy textures are a good foil for many plants. In Connecticut, I had a large, 4 ft tall variety in one corner of my front garden. Canyon Grey is a voluptuous, cascading greenish-gray shrub that gives an almost eerie look to the garden. Yes, that is a wooden sculpture of a hand coming up out of the plant on the steps. I'm playing upon the spooky look of the curvy branches and spiky silvery needle-like leaves. When rubbed or stepped on, the leaves give off a heady, spicy, woodsy scent. I keep this trimmed back; otherwise, it would spread all over the yard! It is great for a hillside, for that reason. They don't require much water, either.



David's Choice is a mounding type of Artemisia, with lovely small yellowish white flowers in the spring/summer. It keeps its lacy, mounded shape all year round and makes a nice architectural statement at the front of the garden bed.




Salvia spp. comprises a large group of annuals, perennials, and even shrubs. Most of them have delicate green or silver foliage, and many of them have flowers of pink, white, or purple. They add an invaluable focal point to the garden. Autumn Sage is a pretty perennial shrub, about a foot tall, lithe and open in structure, with petite tubular reddish pink blooms that hummingbirds love.


White Sage is a large perennial whose chunky stems can grow to over 6 ft long, with cascades of tiny bell-shaped white flowers that bees and hummingbirds, and even snails, love. The leaf, when dried, is used to make smudge sticks, a tool used by Native Americans and others to purify energy and space. Take the leaves, washed and gently dried, and gather them together in a tight package. Using embroidery floss, or string, leaving about 6 inches at one end, tightly wrap the floss/string up and around the packet of leaves, coming back down to the starting point. Tie off the ends and trim. Hang in a cool, dry place. The sage/smudge stick is ready when the leaves have dried, in a few weeks.

Sage is also a potent herb for cooking and for making sage tea. Simply pour 1 pint of boiling water over 1 oz of the dried herb, and let steep. The tea cools fevers, purifies the blood, stimulates digestion, and soothes inflammations of the mouth, throat, and tonsils. A beautiful plant, a useful herb - a real powerhouse in the garden!