My dad loved to garden and always up on the latest trends in gardening. Finding out that there weren’t enough bees around to pollinate his garden he came up with what he called ‘bee condos’.
My dad with his ‘bee condos’, the first time I had heard of such a concept.
A close-up of dad’s bee condos which was basically a recycled tin can with a bunch of tubes stuffed in it. I think dad used a hollow stemmed plant he had hanging around but bamboo is popular.
This was around 2010. Now I find that there are all sorts of ways to attract bees into your garden. This was designed to attract mason bees to the university grounds.
Here is an ‘insect hotel’ in one of the few untamed areas of Vancouver.
Here is another version I found in Amsterdam’s ‘Hortus’ botanical garden.
I mostly use flowers to attract bees – they love oregano and globe thistles but perhaps I might try dad’s little condos this year – it’s so simple!
Hey Jude’s March Challenge: Wildlife in the Garden.
Batz Gallery 
I must admit that I prefer using flowers to attract the bees and the butterflies, but bug hotels do seem to be very popular! Maybe I will create one in my new garden, there seems to be a lot of bugs already living there!
That’s so interesting, I had never heard of this until now. Thankyou for sharing…
I thought my dad was joking when he talked about his ‘bee condos’. But then I learned that it was a major step in attracting pollinators back into the gardens. I love the way they look – like crafty sculptures…