Posts Tagged: bee condos

Home Invasion!

When you install bee condos--those wooden blocks with holes drilled in them to attract nesting native bees--sometimes you get the unexpected. Like earwigs! Home invasion! Home invasion! We installed two bee condos, each about the size of a brick, in...

Earwig inside a blue orchard bee condo, which has larger holes than one for leafcutting bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Earwig inside a blue orchard bee condo, which has larger holes than one for leafcutting bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

This bee condo for leafcutting bees has 10 tenants. It is about the size of a brick and has smaller holes than a bee block for blue orchard bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Bee condo for leafcutting bees has 10 tenants. It is about the size of a brick. It has smaller holes than those for blue orchard bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Leafcutting bee provisioning her nest. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Leafcutting bee provisioning her nest. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Wild Bees: Alternative Pollinators

Scientists have long been studying alternative pollinators, especially with the decline of the honey bee...

Sweat bee

THIS NATIVE POLLINATOR is a female sweat bee (Halictus tripartitus), so nicknamed because it is attracted to sweat. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Bee condo

BEE CONDO--A grower created this "bee condo"--a slab of wood drilled with different-sized holes--to attract native pollinators. Here leafcutter bees head for their nest cavities. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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