An Insect Hotel as a Utility Box Cover. Part 2 - Roof Construction & Furnishing

THE ROOF

The roof was constructed in a similar fashion to that of a house. The pitch was 45°. The gable ends supported the ridge purlins/laths. The slates were nailed to the laths using galvanised clout nails. 

The gable ends were thus 90° triangles and comprised of pallet planks nailed to principal rafters.

I made an end lapped joint at the top of these rafters so as to furnish a flat face to which the gable end planks could be nailed.

Each gable end rested on the top face of the East and West wall planks, one in line with the South wall and the other the North. 

Pallet planks screwed to the outer face of the North and South walls served as the fixing face for the gable ends.

Once the carpentry was in place, I used a string running from the end of the ridge purlin to the end of the bottom lath as a guide for the lateral position of the slates. 

For the first row of slates I also needed to ensure that they did not protrude into the path of the opening doors. 

To this end I clamped a plank to the underside of the East/West wall planks. This was also the the upper limit for the doors on these elevations. Hence, provided the slate rested on this guide plank I was assured that the door would not be obstructed.

The slates for the first row were cut to half length so as to form the eaves row.
 

I drilled nail holes in all the slates prior to fixing. When fixing slates in the middle of the roof I found it necessary to support the lath behind where I was nailing with a lump hammer, I should have had a rafter in the centre to give a little more stiffness!

 

Prior to the last row of slates being nailed in place, I laid a strip of roofing felt over the ridge and on top of the penultimate row of slates to  ensure the roof was weatherproof
 

 

I used lead flashing to cover the slates upper edges at the roof ridge.

Finally, I closed the gaps between the underside of the slate and the principal rafters by cutting and stapling fruit crate wood to the inside face of the rafter.

 

FINISHINGS & FURNISHINGS 

 

Wooden catches and handles were made for the doors.

 
A coat of linseed oil, tinted with four earth pigments, was applied. If you have never used these before, we have an article here


The hotel was furnished with a selection of pallet wood blocks, these had been drilled using a jig I had made for ease of 'mass production' I will link to it when I have made the film on it.

We also featured a beautifully figured dead branch from our friend's woodland.

Pine cones from the nearby sea shore and many dead flower/plant stems and stalks, drilled shrub branches, bamboos and dried leaves from our garden.

We also particularly added some length of giant bamboo to accommodate the glorious European black bee.

For detailed information on how and what to choose, sizes of holes to drill and tips on length and diameter of individual accommodation for specific arthropods please refer to our Luxury Insect Hotel  design.

A layer of chicken-wire was fixed over the front of the insect house to protect it from birds, who both love to look for nesting materials, try to attach nests and/or eat the insects!

The wire was neatly held in place with some strips of fruit-crate wood.






For the installation of  this insect hotel and the successful hiding of an eyesore, follow this link.

In the meantime, thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this post please share and feel free to comment, ask questions or relate your own experience of the de-uglification of utility boxes.

All the best from sunny Normandie, Andy 

© Andy Colley 2014

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An Insect Hotel as a Utility Box Cover. Part 1 - Design & Construction

A friend of ours is restoring a 300 year-old stone-built longère or long house. The electricity company brought power to the property but sited the ubiquitous supply box right in front of the house. Not surprisingly, she is unhappy with the incongruous nature of such a utilitarian container and asked me to come up with something to disguise the box..
 

It was Sue who came up with the idea of constructing an insect hotel to hide it. She thought that just covering the box with a wooden or stone structure would look incongruous growing out of the front lawn near the flower beds but siting a bug house there would be ideal. I think it is a concept that could be used to encourage insects and camouflage an eyesore, wherever and when ever one may occur.

To give the design a very personal touch, we took an old and very beautiful section of dead tree branch from the property to use in the box. We also collected a variety of cones from the nearby pine forest that skirts the sea shore.

 

Design

Apart from the aesthetics, the very practical reason to cover this utility box was because such installations have a propensity to become car 'magnets'. Sited as they often are at the front of houses and unexpectedly mushrooming up from nowhere, they are habitually backed into by drivers. So the design was made imposing enough to be visible and out of any 'blind spot'.

I decided to make the hotel/cover in two parts: the box (including the insect hotel proper) and the roof. Our friend had some roofing slates left over from last year's major works and I thought it appropriate to have a pitched slate roof  protecting the insect hotel. This would then match the house and add to the harmony of the design within its surroundings aka the genius loci. The accommodation for the insects was to be on one side only, that is the southern elevation. Two doors on the western and east elevation would permit access to the electrical boxes when required.

Finally, the whole was to be held in place by using steel anchors at the four corners embedded in concrete. The ‘free’ ends of the anchors were to fit into pre-drilled holes in the corner posts. The use of these anchors had a further advantage, that is the wooden corner-posts could be held clear of the ground without compromising the stabilty of the hotel, thus limiting the contact with damp during the Winter months. Concrete is not normally a material I use but as it was available here, leftover from another job and as I would be using so little, I opted to use it.

 

Construction

After measuring the minimum interior size needed for the enclosure, I first cut the four wooden corner posts from some 35mm thick pallet wood. 

 


The anchors were made of rebar welded into a cross, the end going into the corner post needed to be round in section so I welded a length of 12mm diameter mild steel bar  to this. They bore an uncanny resemblance to the turn-of-the-century funeral crosses you see on nuns' graves around this area. Albeit a little less ornate.

 

In order to ensure the 12mm hole was drilled centrally up the corner post, I used a small drill press and clamped it to the workbench such that the 12mm bit was over the edge of the bench. I positioned the corner post, and clamped it to the workbench leg so that the centre of it was directly beneath the tip of the drill bit. The post had to be aligned with the vertical axis of the drill press. 

 



Once all four posts were drilled, they were cut to length.
 

 

For the hotel side of the cover, I made square cut-outs at the ends of the upper and lower pallet wood planks to fit the posts., the vertical side walls were nailed to the posts and also nailed into the end grain of the top and bottom planks.

 

The stapling of 10mm thick tongue and groove panelling to the rear of the rectangular frame forming the walls of the hotel stiffened the entire structure.

The north wall was much simpler, with the posts nailed to two horizontal rails and with the wall planks nailed to these. The substantially longer nails were bent over on the inside of the wall and hammered flat.

Prior to the fixing of the wall planks, two additional wooden planks were cut to fit the gap between the rails and were nailed to the posts.
 

 

Two pallet planks were screwed to the upper faces of the north and south walls so as to form the other two sides of the structure. Narrower planks of the same length were screwed to the lower edges of the walls, thus forming the rectangular faces of the East and West aspect.

  

Doors were made to fit these faces and were attached.

In the next post, I  continue, with the construction of the roof and the fitting out and finishing of the Insect Hotel the link is here.

Thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this post please share and feel free to comment, ask questions or relate your own experience of the de-uglification of utility boxes.

All the best from sunny Normandie, Andy 

© Andy Colley 2014

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Two Insect Hotels & Bug Houses Designed and Made from Repurposed Materials - The Gite & The Chalet

There are so many fascinating insects living in a garden and they need both places to overwinter and somewhere to lay eggs in warmer months.

Many gardeners are fastidious in clearing away rotted wood, fallen branches, piles of leaves and herbaceous stems. This debris however, offers sought-after accommodation to a whole raft of arthropods, many of whom have kept the garden pest-free, as well as pollinating fruits and vegetables.

In order to compromise therefore, it is necessary to offer alternative accommodation. This is however not the whole story. Continued use of pesticides has severely depleted insect populations, so if you can offer a haven for them within you own garden, then you are also doing your bit to preserve the biodiversity and counteract the harm being done elsewhere

The following blog post offers two of our more simple designs, whereas the following article will share some of our more elaborate insect homes. These are all made from repurposed materials, untreated pallet wood, fruit crate wood and general garden debris. To decorate them, we use natural earth and mineral pigments, made, as the name suggests, from clays and semi-precious stones. Our article using natural pigments should help you, if you have never used them before.

The Gîte

This is one of the simplest form of solitary bee and lacewing houses, two types of insect who offer so much to the gardener. There are over 200 species of the former, one such, the Harebell bee is so small it can fit inside a wheat-straw stalk and often uses a disused woodworm burrow. When the bees find the accommodation to their liking they will stay throughout the year, using the hole as a nursery, making it the basis of an expanding colony for the garden. This is of great advantage, as it is the solitary bee, which does most of the task of pollinating our food crops. The recommended diameter of burrow to attract these bees is from 2-10 mm. You can achieve this by simply collecting suitable sized hollow stalks or you can do as we did above and drill out some of your old prunings, in our case; buddleia. The lacewing, a delicate and beautiful creature is a wonderful gardener's helper, with many of the species having a voracious appetite for aphids. This sort of accommodation can be sited anywhere you find a suitable opening but in order to attract the insects initially it is a good idea to site it where there are melliferous flowers

The Chalet

This is a nice little project and where you can use natural pigments to create some really harmonious designs as well as useful insect accommodation. They also make great gifts and can be either suspended or attached directly to walls or fences.

The chalets are made from pallet wood blocks with a piece of pallet wood planking for the backing board. They also have roof shingles cut from fruit crate wood. The roof shingles can be attached either with 15mm panel pins or, if you have it, a mechanical or electric stapler. The most difficult part is drilling the pallet wood block. I used 6 and 10mm drill bit.

If you are thinking of this as a project for a child, it could be given in kit form, even as a gift, for self-assembly and the opportunity to get creative in personal choice of decoration. From experience it is better to varnish or oil each individual element before the final assembly. You can have great fun mixing and matching the pigments and apart from being great gifts, these insect homes can make useful little items for a fund raising event or, who knows, the start of a whole new career! 

Truly the gift that keeps on giving, when we were wrapping up one of these as a birthday present, we noticed that one of the chambers was already occupied! It also makes a fascinating study to just sit and watch who comes to check out the accommodation. On the right, you can see that two holes have already been sealed. If you have leaf cutter bees, then they make for compulsive viewing.


Here is our detailed film on how to make the chalet:

A following post will share two more designs for insect hotels, again made from repurposed freely available materials, so until then, thanks for dropping by!Please feel free to share this article, comment and/or ask for further information.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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Home-made Insect Hotel from repurposed materials. Bee Cosy Bug House for happy Mason bees

 

Give the bees a gift - 'B is for Bee Cosy'

An insect hotel makes a great project and a gift you can be proud of. The following film shows you a detailed 'how-to' but if you need any more help. please get in touch. 

The Bee Cosy for cosy bees is an elegant green gift for you to make using 99% recuperated materials. This time the design uses more wood recycled from a fruit crate and in addition dried plant stems and thin branches from the garden. The Bee Cosy is a little more difficult than the Apple House bird feeder in the previous blog post: http://thegreenlever.blogspot.fr/2011/11/is-for-apple-house-diy-green-gifts.html

I know from experience this present is well received by friends, family and the bees and lacewings, its future tenants! The house will provide not only a Winter shelter for many small creatures including some 200 varieties of solitary bees but year round living accommodation too. These superb insects are an essential part of any garden, they pollinate and in the case of the lacewings consume vast quantities of garden pests such as aphids. Overwintering insects in an hotel encourages them to stay on and multiply in the Spring.

 



It's been a fantastic year in the garden, we've just gathered the third crop of figs and the greenhouses are still providing nasturtiums, tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, basil and lemon balm for Autumn salads. 

Planning Accommodation for Solitary Bees

For the interior section of the Bee Cosy I looked at various sites on the web, which had information on insect hibernation. Because the solitary bees are so diverse, they can easily be put off using a Bee Cosy if the accommodation is not to their liking. To make your Insect Hotel as attractive as possible you need a selection of hollow stems but the cube block from a pallet also makes an ideal nest box. You will need to drill the holes to the recommended diameter and depth for bees, although making some larger or smaller will also attract ladybirds, earwigs and the giant but friendly, European Black Bees. The rule I followed for the pallet block was a maximum diameter of 10 mm, I used a 8 mm drill.

 These holes are drilled right through the standard pallet cube/block

Some of the solitary bees are really tiny, the beautifully named, Harebell bee often reuses a vacated woodworm hole, so will need a nest no bigger than 2mm in diameter! You can therefore,  drill your block will several sizes of drill between 2-10 mm or make a separate house to attract a specific bee. You will also notice as you look through some of the sites that they recommend lining the holes with parchment paper, I believe this is because bees can get put off by sawdust or splinters but I just made sure I'd  tidied up the block. When the bees find the accommodation to their liking they will stay throughout the year, using the hole as a nursery, so your Bee Cosy could become the base of an expanding colony for the garden.

Loss of Habitats. Wither the Lacewing?

The stemmed section of the Bee Cosy is for all insects but also hopefully to accommodate lacewings. Why lacewings? Well this hugely beneficial insect is in decline because it no longer has the habitats in which to survive the Winter. The Lacewing has unfortunately fallen prey to the mania for tidy gardens and in particular to the whole army of people brandishing  snippers and secateurs, who issue forth in the Autumn to attack herbaceous borders and cart garden debris off to the local tip. Giving someone an insect house means they can still cut off the flower, herb and vegetable stems but these are then just relocated to a handy 'hotel'. 

Slightly angry Swallowtail caterpillar amongst the fennel stems.

Gardening for insects means leaving as many habitats as possible available for Winter use. The making of the Bee Cosy is in fact the only time we ever raid the borders to obtain these stems, which will provide a plethora of winter holiday homes for a whole myriad of insects.

When choosing stems and branches to use for nesting tubes, remember to think about toxicity, for example I used elderberry branches as recommended on various sites, although they are slightly toxic. All plants are not toxic to all species. 

Finishing off and siting your insect house

Ready for a wrap

The final Bee Cosy was decorated with a wash of acrylic water-based varnish, which had been tinted with natural mineral-based pigments. We have already used these on the Apple House and will be using them and other ecological finishes in the upcoming 'pallet presents', we therefore decided to devote the next blog to their use.

In order to help with positioning the Bee Cosy, I include a nail with the finished gift and a simple instruction on the best place to locate it. Solitary bees being cold-blooded need the warmth of the sun, so the Cosy should face south east or south. They tend also to like an uninterrupted flight path when nearing their home but need shelter form prevailing winds. Placing it amongst or near flowers is also a good idea.

Peace over the Hen House and the Bee Cosy!

How long will it take to make one of these? Around about four hours, including cutting the stems, perhaps a more satisfying experience that wandering around the shops or surfing the net trying to find an original gift!

Update: Last year in this very insect hotel above, a wren decided it was the ideal spot for a nest and removed all the hollow stems and filled the Bee Cosy with a beautiful moss and feather nest, which unfortunately was blow away in the wind before completed. We have since replaced this with one of our open-fronted nest boxes (the design is on this blog see 'Browse by Project' bottom right of this page). However, we did make our other stand-alone and wall-mounted designs with a layer of wire netting to stop this happening, as it was also frustrating for the poor wren! This has not been a problem with our tree-hanging designs, so it might also depend on positioning, as well as how many wild birds you have nesting in your area - we have a forest garden.

More designs on this blog

A step-by-step tutorial for our Luxury Insect Hotel for discerning arthropods (shown left) and two simpler but effective designs for Mason bees and lacewings, follow this link for The Gîte & the Chalet (Chalet pictured right).


If you enjoyed this article, then please feel free to share it, comment and/or ask questions.

Cheers, Andy

Some useful sites:

http://www.foxleas.com/bee_house.htm

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/readers-solutions/making-wildlife-habitat-recycled-found-materials

http://merseyforest.org.uk/howtoguides/hibernationandnesting.pdf

© Andy Colley 2014

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