BEE Up

Roxana Villa of Illuminated Perfume has written an article on Etsy's blog, Holistic Beekeeping. She then came with a great idea to make a team event of it. Alot of members of the Artisans Gallery Team have been making honey-bee related treasuries and items. Besides that there is a blog it forward, and this is my contribution.

While thinking what to write about bees I remembered Wudwerx, who I met just a few days before on Etsy's forums. I loved his Bee Hotels right away and knew he would have a nice story behind his work.

Beside that these Bee Hotels are gorgeous and are an amazing decoration, Mike explained me how he started and how they function:
''The idea for Bee Hotels came from my parents who run a plant nursery. They had seen articles by the Royal Horticultural Society on habitats for solitary bees, and suggested I try making some. With a little research and designing, my Bee Hotels were born! I decided to make a whole range, to not only attract solitary bees, but other insects too.The Bee Hotels are designed for 2 types of solitary bees: Mason bees and Leafcutter bees. Solitary (or non swarming bees ) are great for your garden. They are not aggressive so are very unlikely to sting you, and they also do an excellent job of pollinating the flowers in your garden, leading to better fruit yields. They use the tubes of the Bee Hotel to nest in. The bees lay an egg in the the tube then build a wall in front of it. The Mason bees build a mud wall and the Leafcutters cut a piece of leaf to fit and then stick it in place. They then do the same over and over again until the tube is full. When the young bees have hatched they break through the walls and escape into your garden to pollinate it.''



''The Bee Hotels are also used by garden spiders and Ladybirds, both of which are really beneficial for your garden, by eating insects and flies that may damage your plants. These Bee Hotels have been designed to enhance any garden, and to help bring it to life. I hope you can find the right one for your garden! ''
Check Mike's Wudwerx shop to discover gorgeous wood work and of course Bee Hotels.

I also wanted to show you what we have made for the theme:

Tomorrow the Blog chain with continue with an article on IlluminatedPerfume's blog.

Blog it Forward Image by Roxana Villa of Illuminated Perfume

Flickr Favorites- Honey Business

1. Shot to the Moon, 2. Too Close for Comfort, 3. looking for the perfect hexagon, 4. surreal atmosphere

This week's mosaic was very difficult as I was inspired by the wasp nest at our front door, I wanted this theme but without frighting anyone away from our blog :)

I decided to focus on the wonderful hexagon structures they make instead of the creatures themself, I think I did the right thing...

More mosaics can be admired at ArtMind's blog and you can join the fun!

Here is the picture of the nest I was mentioning, I think they made it in just a few days as I would have noticed it before. To avoid an even bigger nest I bought some poison and had to kill them, as it would have been impossible to enter our home in some more days (the nest was right above our frontdoor). I was suprised to see that there were about 30 of them, who knows what would it have become of it if we had noticed it much later...

I couldn't resist to show our challenge entry of the Wasp challenge we had a while back, as they are so matching the theme of today...