Summer is nearly here!

 Replacement of the leaky flat roof...

Our leaky old flat roof on the black shed has now been replaced with a new, sloped green roof. Just like when the much-needed dustbin lids for our rhubarb forcing bins turned up on the towpath exactly when needed, green roof sedums were found dumped on a piece of land just when the roof was ready to plant. 

...with a new, sloped green roof!

Firstly, we covered the roof with a pond liner, followed by the addition of soil (vermiculite mix). The third picture below shows the green plants, transported in the van to the final destination: our garden!

We also put up a bird box at the back of the black shed, facing into the hedge, so fingers crossed for a load of healthy chicks to go with our bee cocoons in the bee home on the side of the shed. 

Our bee harvest this year was 43 healthy mason bees, 16 unknown cocoons (see the picture below), four resin bees and seven straws full of bees, which cannot be seen, but some have used mud and some resin. It will be interesting to see if they emerge well...

It looks like there may be two types of mason bee in the wooden blocks, as some tubes had smaller cocoons than others; Charlotte thinks the unknown cocoons might be some sort of parasitic wasp.

This is the first year we have had resin bees in our bee home and we're sad to say that when the straws were removed, the four resin bee nests in the wooden block broke. They were also stuck and the little pupae inside are very delicate. 

If we have any next year, we will just leave them in situ. Luckily, we seem to have more resin bees in the straws we put in some of the tubes. The resin bees use tree sap for making their nests and seem to overwinter in the form of a softish pupae, whereas the mason bees overwinter as dormant adult bees inside their cocoons, which are pretty strong. Here's hoping we have another good harvest next year. 

                                                                     

This blog post was created by Michela, who is currently participating in the Duke of Edinburgh - bronze award.