Build your own Beehouse

Australia’s native bees are quite unlike their honey-making foreign relatives in that they don’t build hives, the don’t make honey, and they don’t develop integrated colonies. Instead, our bees prefer more solitary lifestyles, using single burrows or nests as their abodes.

For this reason, it’s quite easy to attract native bees to a garden by creating a ‘bee hotel’ or beehouse. Given that the three most common types of native bee prefer different nesting conditions, three different types of ‘accommodation’ should be incorporated into one structure.

The best casing to hold the material is a rectangular wooden crate or frame. This can then be packed with the various materials to house the three types of bee.

Carpenter bees prefer natural tubes such as bamboo and other dry, robust hollow stems including grapevines, fennel and hydrangea. Cut stems to about 15cm and make sure one end is sealed off (either by cutting the bamboo above a joint, or packing the stem with clay), a before bundling the stems together.
Leafcutter bees like to make their homes in old borer holes in wood. To replicate this, simply drill different diameter holes (3mm to 8mm) about 15cm into the end of a piece of untreated timber. Again, make sure the hole doesn’t go all the way through to the other end.
Blue banded bees are earth-dwellers and love soil that’s rich in clay. Mix sifted builders’ clay with a bit of soil and pack into wide terracotta or pvc pipes and poke 15 cm-deep holes of different diameters (3mm to 8mm) into the packed soil.

Assemble your beehouse by randomly stacking the different ‘rooms’ into the wooden frame or crate. Then place the crate in a sheltered spot – preferably in part shade, raised off the ground and facing north-east. Within a few weeks, your new guests should start to arrive and will repay you by helping to pollinate your garden’s flowers and blossoms.