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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DIY Bird Box for Robins, Wrens, Pied Wagtails, Eastern Bluebirds, Northern Flickers and Purple Martins.

Spring is the time when birds begin to look for good nesting sites. They may try many possibilities and even actually start the makings of a nest before they actually make their final choice. You can help them and attract many of these birds to your garden by providing them with a good choice of homes. In the last blog we looked at one design to attract a specific group. Now I'm going to proffer this design to attract some others. Over the decades the natural nesting sites, cracks in old buildings and garden walls and shakes in ancient trees, have become rarer. Our aim is also to create something which would blend into the background to attract these often shy birds.

As a rule, in Europe these boxes are expected to attract mainly robins, wrens and wagtails. In the USA there are over 50 species who prefer to use an open-fronted cavity nest. However, wherever you live you should research the individual habits and volumes needed for any specific  bird. Martins, for example, prefer to nest in colonies so you should provide either 5 or 6 boxes placed closely together or one large box with separate nesting chambers. Blackbirds may also use this type of box but would need it to be enlarged by around 50%.

The materials and construction are the same as for our previous box but I will repeat them here in case you have not read the post. If you have, then please continue down the page until you come to the section on the positioning of the front planks.

Materials

The box is based on the same design as my Apple House but is formed around a larger 140 mm - 5½" pallet block. You will need 1 or 2, 100 mm - 4" wide pallet wood planks and the wood strips from a fruit crate or orange box. We decorated it with water-based acrylic varnish and tinted it with earth and mineral pigments. For information on mixing these: http://thegreenlever.blogspot.fr/2012/02/using-natural-earth-and-mineral.html

Construction

 

For the four sides, mark out the first length, which corresponds to the length of the block plus plank thickness. Cut four sides to this length.


 

Pre-nail the planks, if the wood splits at this juncture, then drill a pilot hole at a slightly smaller diameter than the nail shank and then nail. 














Position and nail front.

 

 

Cut base to make a platform suitable for nest building, 100 mm x 100 mm - 4" x 4" and mitred at 45°. 

 
 
Mark the position of the shelf from the inside.

 

Drill pilot hole and screw the shelf in position.

 


Trim the edges. 

You now have something which looks like this.

 

 

Select wood for back of box and trace round the box as a guide for drilling pilot holes for nailing the back and screwing in the shelf.

 

  

 

Nail back wall and screw shelf into place.

Trim

Drill pilot holes for wall mounting box at bottom...

...and top.

 

Drill a drainage hole. This is very important with an open-fronted design.

 

Cut fruit crate wood to length to make shingles. Due to the open aspect, these should project well over the front of the box to protect it from rain, sun and to give more privacy.

 

 
To finish, we use earth and mineral paints and acrylic water-based varnish... 

...with a design which mimicked the golden hearted ivy growing on the wall where we were going to site it. 

We made another to fit snugly under the eaves of the pallet wood hen house.

Now, if you'd like to, sit back and enjoy he film.

The previous post has another nesting box - a design for blue tits, chickadees and pied fly catchers

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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DIY Nesting Box for Blue Tits, Chickadees, Pied Fly Catchers, Sparrows and Nuthatches.

It's Spring and the birds are still out looking for nest sites, which over the past decades have dwindled. You can help them and attract them to your garden by providing them with a suitable desirable residence. The example below is a simple design, requiring a minimum of tools and in particular to obviate the need for a hole saw or large bit.

Natural nesting sites do not come with standard size front doors but for the above 'hole-in-the-front' design, there is a general rule of thumb, with some examples, given below. It is interesting that of the two bird boxes we gave as presents last year, one had an exact  25 mm round hole and the blue tits spent a couple of days enlarging the opening before they used it. Whilst the other box, at a location, some 10 miles away from the former was of the above design and was used without problem. However, making the box of pine means it is easy to modify with a beak and why shouldn't birds, like most of us, enjoy personalising their own home.

This one has a round entrance but is harder to make than the above design as it requires a large boring bit. Both the designs were recently given as Birthday presents and I'm happy to say all have tenants!

25 mm - 1" for blue, coal and marsh tits and chickadees.

28 mm - 1 1/8" for great tits, tree sparrows and pied flycatchers 

32 mm - 1¼" house sparrows, tree swallows and nuthatches

45 mm - 1¾" starlings

150 mm x 150 mm - 6" x 6" for the barn owl box I am in the process of making

Materials

The box is based on the same design as my Apple House but is formed around a larger 140 mm - 5½" pallet block. You will need 1 or 2, 100 mm - 4" wide pallet wood planks and the wood strips from a fruit crate or orange box. We decorated it with water-based acrylic varnish and tinted it with earth and mineral pigments. For information on mixing these: http://thegreenlever.blogspot.fr/2012/02/using-natural-earth-and-mineral.html   

Construction

 

For the four sides, mark out the first length, which corresponds to the length of the block plus plank thickness. Cut four sides to this length.


 

Pre-nail the planks, if the wood splits at this juncture, then drill a pilot hole at a slightly smaller diameter than the nail shank and then nail. 

 

 
Cut base to make a platform suitable for nest building, 100 mm x 100 mm - 4" x 4" and mitred at 45°. 

Position and nail front.

 


Put each plank in place and from the back draw the outline of the frame and use that as a guide for the pilot holes to avoid splitting the wood.

 

 
Trim the edges. 

 

With the shelf in place, mark its position from the inside. This will enable the correct location for the retaining screw. Drill and screw in place.



 
 

Select planks for the rear of the box. It is a good idea to screw these into place in case you need to clean out the box after use. 

The centre piece is put on first so that the correct position for the screw holding the shelf from the back can be easily located.

 

Mark out the outline of the box onto the remaining planks.

Drill screw holes.



 

Screw to the back. Trim the top with a generous border. This allows for mounting holes for screws and nails.

Cut lengths of fruitcrate wood to make shingles for the roof. Attach to roof with staples or panel pins. 

 
You can finish with a coat of linseed/hemp oil or acrylic water-based varnish.

To create an illusion of the box being a natural nesting site, we decorated ours with the same climbing ivy as was growing in the place we intended positioning our box.





Now if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film. 

Next post will be a design for an open-fronted box, suitable for Robins, Wrens, Eastern Bluebirds, Northern Flickers, and Purple Martins.

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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How to Make a Simple Fuelless Cooker or Hay-box - No Power? No Worries. Hot Food.

Here's a quick and easy way to use less fuel, less water and still have a tasty and nutritious meal from a cardboard box. Get one ready in case of power outages or for hot food on a journey or emergency.

The Hay-box or fuelless cooker was a popular item around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. In particular during the World Wars and the Great Depression when people were often displaced and the price of fuel rose steeply and/or was rationed. Furthermore, it provided a form of cookery which used less water and in which, precious food, cooked at an even temperature by residual heat had no chance of burning and becoming spoiled. There was also the added and important factor that nutrients were retained through the slower and lower cooking times and temperature.
 

 

We cook all our meals and heat water with our wood-burning cooker. In the colder weather it is alight most of the day heating the house as well. As we move into the milder weather we tend to eat more raw food and as we have no need of the heating so the cooker is alight just around meal times. This poses a problem in that we do need hot water for washing hands when we come in from the garden prior to preparing our food .

 

We solved this problem by using a Hay Box to keep the water, heated at meal-times, hot. We made our first box from scrap wood and filled it with organic lucerne hay which we are given by the organic dairy farmer from whom we buy our chicken grain.

The idea is not a new one, in our 1920’s copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management the Fuelless cooker was used to cook meals for a fraction of the fuel cost. Nowadays it is just as important to consider the fuel-saving benefits of such a system as well as bearing in mind the possibility of providing hot food during power outages in the colder weather.
 

The principle is that the heated food is placed, in its pot or saucepan, into a well-insulated box , the lid which is also insulated is put in place and that’s it! The food takes about 4 times longer to cook completely within the box and may need to be reheated prior to serving but the only  energy consumed has been that needed to get it to boiling point. Of course, the ‘box’ part of the system is only required for safety and neatness and possibly transporting, I know of others that have simply wrapped duvets around the heated pan and achieved the same end result and have a warm duvet to boot!

 
 
ORGANIC LUCERNE HAY

ORGANIC TRITICALE STRAW

ORGANIC VEGETABLE FIBRES

ORGANIC HEMP AND LINEN

HOLZFLEX WOOD FIBRE

ORGANIC SHEEP'S WOOL


I used an ecological, non-toxic insulation for my box and there are a multitude of suitable insulation you can use: fleece material, multiple layers of corrugated cardboard, hay, straw even expanded polystyrene, the choice is yours. 

The first box I’ll share is the simplest and cheapest. We are very fortunate in having a local ecological building supplies company (in fact it’s next door to our organic supermarket) and I could buy single panels of  wood wool insulation 30mm thick for around $3,00. On  the same visit to buy the insulation we popped into the organic shop and picked up two cardboard boxes of similar proportions but different sizes. 

The insulation needs to be cut to line the four sides and base of the larger box and the smaller box should fit in the cavity that remains. I was able to find cartons whose sizes differed by about 60mm hence the 30mm insulation on the inside walls of the larger carton would be sufficient to form the space for the smaller carton.

 

To make the lid to the Hay Box I cut two rectangles of cardboard to the size of the larger carton and made a ‘sandwich’ with the insulation between them. The lid was held together with broad masking tape. I adhered the tape around the perimeter of the lid so as to seal in the insulation.

And that’s it, the box is ready to go. When the saucepan is put into the box, the voids at the box corners can be filled with triangular-shaped pieces of cardboard (a bit like ‘Toblerone’ boxes) or stuffed with tea towels, ideally any kind of insulating material which will reduce heat loss due to convection currents.


Next time I’ll share  my design for a wooden hay box, more robust than the cardboard one it is more suitable for carrying hot contents in a car so you can enjoy your own hot food on a journey.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to, sit back and enjoy the film:

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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