Bee hotel

Here's my "bee hotel" which I finished putting together earlier today. Instructions on how to build one are freely available on the internet. Mine was cobbled together from scrap pieces of wood - mainly from an old piece of skirting board, a handful of nails, and sections of bamboo and dried Japanese knotweed (because I ran out of bamboo).

The idea is that you hang them in a warm place that catches the sun, and mason bees populate it and lay their eggs inside the tubes. It's all about encouraging bees to your garden and giving them a helping hand, especially considering that bees have been dangerously in decline in recent years.

I'm not 100% certain that hanging the bee hotel on a tree is a good idea. They may prefer it to be on a wall, but I put it on a tree because we didn't really have any suitable walls that catch the sun for a large period of the day. I'll leave it up on the tree for a while and see if any bees take up residence. If they don't, then I'll see about relocating it to somewhere they might find preferable.

Various insects in the garden

I hadn't tried the macro feature on my camera before. I must say, I'm impressed.