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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DIY Pallet Wood Hen House Chicken Coop Part 4 - Assembly contnued and Finishings

Natural Finish - A piece of buddleia branch trimmed to make way for the Hen House is used to fashion its doorknob.

It's day three of the Assembly of the new Hen House. The chicks have spent their first night in their new home. It's bigger and roomier than their old one, never again will I design or make a hen house which doesn't have space for us to stand upright! I also found that putting a door in both back and front makes for ease of cleaning and is a good way of removing perches and keeping the house aired in hot weather. The house is sited on the far side of the garden and is in the angle of the back wall of a neighbouring longère and the North bocage (raised hedge). In the Winter it receives the sun quite early in the morning, when the rest of the garden is in the shadow of the house, which runs the entire length of the garden, some 50 metres (164 feet). It's  a regular suntrap in the Summer, which is why the fig tree does so well there and the hens, sybarites through and through, love it.

 

Breakfast in front of the New Hen House.  

Raising the Roof

We start the day by putting the gable ends in place. These are temporarily held in position with diagonal supports to the walls, which will be removed once the ridge purlin is in place.

 

Using a straight edge ensures that the wall and gable end are in line so that the ridge purlin brace may be fitted.

The House is now beginning to take shape with both the gable ends in place. We are now ready to fit the ridge purlin.   

The ridge purlin is measured and cut to length once the gable ends are in place.  

The ridge purlin is screwed to the inside face of the gable end apex. Screw holes are drilled through the gable end frame prior to fitting the purlin in place.

Once the purlin is in place, the braces can be fitted to each end of the Hen House. These braces are designed to take the roof load off the screws securing the purlin to the gable end. The roof load is thus borne by the side walls and floor. 

Once the ridge purlin and brace have been screwed together, the temporary diagonal supports may be removed.

 

Furring strips are now fitted to the ridge purlin. 

The roof is now ready for the panels to be fitted.

The panels are screwed to the walls and gable ends from the inside and from the outside to attach the ridge purlin.

  

The most expensive part of the Hen House, a good quality tarpaulin, can now  be fitted.

The surplus material is trimmed off and battens cut from pallet wood are used to fix the tarpaulin to the underside of the roof panels.

The open sides of the pallet base are sealed with planking, nailed to the wooden blocks.

The decoration with découpage is made from paper napkins.

The building inspector calls to assess the job. He's a white-laced buff crested and bearded Polish, one of three brothers who are joint heads of this house.







If you want to see our Polish chickens in action:

There is another post here, which shows how I used butt joints to construct the roof panels of pallet wood too. This makes the house even cheaper for those of you who don't have left-over or recuperated tongue & groove cladding.

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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