Bee Baths

Bee Font garden bowl: detail

Discovering a nest of wild bees in my garden spurred me to this post. This is the second nest created in a forgotten clump of grass cuttings. Clearly they love it and find it a perfect environment. The first nest was quite modest, saucer sized, right in the middle of a small border. This latest is huge tucked against my green house wall. Both nests sited on bare earth with the dropped grass cuttings seeming to create a sturdy thatched roof and integral nest material.

Yesterday, whilst going in for a late tidy up I unwittingly lifted the cap off the new one sending the bees - possibly a couple of hundred...or so it seemed - immediately swarming up and I shrieked dropping the lid back on. Macro seconds after the wee shock, I was delighted ....the simplest, wildest bee home!! They are very pretty round bees but no intimate shots unfortunately. This humble snatch in flight shows one hovering up from the roof I topped with some new grass cuttings to make amends for my clumsy intrusion. There is a wonderful drone coming from within the clump too...a musical bee box!

This year I created a very shallow garden bath bowl especially for small creatures. The shallow font really came out of noticing how often insects drown in deeper bowls of water that have no landing posts, especially in dry, hot weather where there is little in the way of available moisture droplets. Not much in the way of dry weather now!!... but the bowls combine an interesting table top waterhole with all year round aesthetics for the garden.

Bee Font detail 2

See more of my work at

www.helen-nock.co.uk

"I'm very wary of these tripod ladders, I took a life changing fall from the top of a 12ft tripod. Now I only use them myself with great care. The issue is that they are very unstable at the top if you lean to either side, and they go with no…"

"Done a couple of second cuts already this last week would you believe. It's almost as if the grass has a memory of last year's drought and is making up for it now plenty of moisture available"

"the tripods are good but in some scenarios the wide base and the fact the 3rd leg has to be placed some distance away from the step part for stability makes this large foot print impractical eg when cutting hedge behind a shed or greenhouse with…"

Comments

Helen Nock June 16, 2012 at 1:26pm

Bee embedded hangings!! Could look very attractive too. Thanks John :)
Gareth Wilson June 16, 2012 at 5:10pm

That's great your bee font would brighten up any garden
Fenlandphil June 17, 2012 at 9:34am

Lovely work as always Helen.
Helen Nock June 18, 2012 at 1:27pm

Thank you both Phil and Gareth :)
Helen Nock February 27, 2013 at 11:38am

I missed your last suggestion about the painted holes John. I'm going to share this.. Thanks :)