Build a solitary bee house - PEP BB animal.sand.bee

I've been building houses out of salvaged materials. However, some have required painting which is verboten. What if a box I salvaged was already painted?

Also, on the salvaged side, if I salvaged PVC pipe sections to use as housing, it that acceptable?

Most of the wood I use for trays I salvaged as tabletops, busted shelving, etc and may have a coating. Some I take all the way off, and some I left as it and just cut the galleries into the plates. Does that qualify?

For this BB I had a large piece of spare wood and noticed the mason bees building holes underneath my deck. I used a 5/16 " hole drill. So I drilled a bunch of holes and got it mounted underneath the deck, they seem to like it because there is substantially less heat during the day.

I fiddled around with a few different designs, but settled on something simple!

Half a log, with drilled holes, and held in place with natural twine. Sheltered by the hedge. Hopefully to be home to mining bees of the Andrena sp. I'll keep an eye on it over the next few months!

Did you know that Japanese knotweed is a pernicious invasive here? It's also hollow. I thought I could put some to use in a bee hotel when I found this out.
This is primarily for our mason bees(the blue orchard bee), They want holes to their specific body size, so I made sure to have a variety of knotweed tube sizes for them and any other bees that want to use the spaces.

The knotweed patch


Felled knotweed


Cut stalks, one end is open, and the other sealed by the intact knotweed joint


I have this empty olive oil jug(cleaned of all oil) that would make a nice container for the tubes


I cut a flap out of the metal to serve as an overhang to protect the tube openings. I also flipped it over so that the spout would be at the bottom of the house to prevent water seeping in.


Then I loaded the inside with the cut knotweed tubes


Side view showing that the tubes are covered.

I'm hoping to attract leafcutter bees.

Sorry about the paint last time. I still want to atract leaf cutter bees, I just think that they are neat.

Bee "house" for mason bees in upstate NY (hole diameters are 1/4" & 5/16")

I used a piece of pine wood looking for some mason bees to come live in it.

masonry bee house pine wood v

We have several mason/solitary bees that come to our wildflowers. Hoping they find this bee 'hotel.'