Bees at work

I observed the different plants in my garden to determine which flowers were visited most frequently by the local bees. I also filmed the bees and created a short video that was loaded onto YouTube to encourage others to think about bees and also to provide a short video to help people relax while watching native wildlife.

Installed a "purchased" solitary bee hotel but also created a "home-built" addition by drilling appropriately sized holes into a piece of an off-cut from a fence post I had used elsewhere in the garden. The hotel was soon found and used by the local Red Mason bees. It was fascinating to watch them at work as they cleaned out the holes, laid their eggs and capped the holes using mud from the edge of our garden pond. A video of the bees at work can be found below https://youtu.be/PktVlSwLI7c

A local primary school with which I had a connection was creating a "forest school" area and wildlife patch. I was presented with a financial gift when I retired from my role with the school and local Church, the gift was passed on to the school to help buy trees and wildflower plants for the area. We also made and placed a number of bird boxes in the mature trees edging the school playing fields.