Fairy Houses, Bee Houses, and Garden Products to Avoid

Some fairies are said to live in boulders, others perhaps in purpose-built housing.

In this blog post, a professional gardener in southern Colorado moves from greenhouses to fairy houses (with her dad as maintenance man) to bee houses.

And please scroll to the bottom — it’s a long post — for a list of bee-killing garden products to avoid.

4 thoughts on “Fairy Houses, Bee Houses, and Garden Products to Avoid

  1. Medeine Ragana

    We have “mason” bees here in TN. They are a real problem as they try to drill into the wooden siding of the houses. Thankfully my mobile home is covered in vinyl, so they can’t get in and wreck the house, but they try very hard to get into the treated posts of my porch. And they are a pain! They have territories and will fight off other bees and you if you get in the way. They don’t appear to sting, but will fly and hover around their “area” until you either go away or somehow dissuade them. They are not yellow jackets, which nest in the ground. These are black bees about an inch long. They’re a real pain and I have this battle going on every spring because they like to hang around my front door! I have over 2 acres of property. Why can’t they find someplace else to hang out besides my front door?

    I have a similar problem with hornets. They insist on nesting in the concrete blocks which make up my raised beds. Again, with over 2 acres of land, they can’t find someplace else to nest? Sheesh!

  2. I am not promising this would work, but could you put a “house” for the bees (bamboo tubes? PVC tubes?) some distance away? Would a dummy raised bed lure away the hornets?

    I cannot claim perfect success here. My problem was flickers drilling nesting holes in the guest cabin. I left a tall, dead pine standing nearby as a lure — now the winter winds have knocked it over!

  3. Medeine Ragana

    Well, that would be an idea, except there are lots of trees nearby and the bugs refuse to go anywhere near them. For some odd reason they like my house. 🙁 Sigh….

  4. Medeine Ragana

    Well, turns out the bees that are annoying my house are actually *carpenter bees* not mason bees. Who knew??

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