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so it's early May and things are just
starting to warm up and take shape and
happen in the garden
these Aranea stardom artists garden
spiders Lanie's lodge but the eggs have
hatched and the spiderlings are all
grouping
she's just surefire sign that summers on
the way or at least that spring is
ending and the whole of the insect war
the wild hall whatever you wanna call it
is so it's starting to move like I say
it's it's early evening it's warm so
there's a few bees about not a
tremendous amount but things will get
better from this point on and I've got a
good feeling about this year I think
it's going to be a stonker fir solitary
bees so with that in mind and if you
have a stump in your garden you might
want to consider leaving it I've got
three here I might where I chop down my
pine trees it's all part of a plan
there's going to be more ponds and more
trees going in so don't worry that chop
trees down they were very very
insensitive Lee placed and right in the
middle of where I needed to put the
ponds and they were very big blocking
the light behind they're not native so
with all those factors together I
dropped them down I am keeping all the
wood and slowly changing it into habitat
so it's all kind of working quite well
but if you have a stump like this you
could use it for a habitat
you know I'm early days on this but I
sure you take up here go be careful
because in this clump of
rotting grass and I guess tree bits and
stuff vegetation there is a bumblebee
nest so you want a bumblebee nest don't
worry about building massive habitats or
intricate habitats dump some vegetation
on the ground so this stump see I've
dropped down the side and I've put it
kind of wedge it's hard to hold the
camera here but I'll try and show you if
I take this bit off replace it as it
eventually will go there you go move
around the front throw this this is the
cut I've made into it and in that I'm
going to drill all the normal holes with
no sort of PVA or anything at all on
this one I'm I'm just going to let it
rot down naturally but I'm going to fill
it with holes and it being a tree that I
guess is still alive at the moment I'm
hoping that as its as it dies that they
will start inhabit ating it eventually
this stump will be chopped down which is
contradicting what I just said about you
having an old stump and using it because
I'm putting a new area here eventually I
will chop it off at the bottom but I'll
stand it upright and it will serve the
same purpose so it's just a really good
way to utilize what would normally be I
guess mulch door let rot down which in
itself isn't bad because you can get a
lot of her invertebrate larvae that that
thrive in rotting wood but for this one
in particular it was too good an
opportunity to miss so I've taken the
front off that will be the roof and it
will be full of holes I'll show you I'll
cut to it anyway in a second and miss
out a few weeks because I have to let
this wood season a little bit because it
is if you watch my other videos you'll
know that it's very hard to get a clean
hole in wet wood and a live wood is wet
wood so I'm going to wait a few weeks
let it brown off and then drill the
holes so as if by magic I'm going to cut
to that now
so it's a beautiful sunny evening I am
sitting here on my deck drilling away by
hand and not using the bench drill or
pillar drill because I can't fit it
underneath the head and I thought you
know what I'm going to show people how
to drill holes sounds silly didn't it
because you can't drill a hole well
holes are fine for drilling if you were
doing anything other than something for
solitary bees there's a method to get in
the hole just right so I'll try and
drill one with you he says this is
slightly where I've been drying this
stump this is the second part of video
so I'll tack on in a moment but am i've
been drying it off in the Sun it's
relatively dry till about an inch down
then there's water in it you over
ideally we've said this before
leave wood to season for over winter
really till the next year but okay this
is what we've got to work with so we'll
stick with it always drill downwards
because it's just so much easier than
drilling horizontally so lay you're in
this case log if you're doing a stump
habitat so you can make some wedges like
I have if you like just to keep it
upright so I always use a new drill and
make sure it's clean so you want to be
just going slow to start with to open
the pipe and then for this kind of link
drill take it out each time so that it
cleans the shavings out of the drill
otherwise you won't work right thanks
sighs hole three cuts and that's it if
we clean that off and see I mean it went
a bit weird actually that one because
it's in a knot but it's still nice and
clean and the hole hasn't gotten much
farther inside obviously this is all
gonna be sanded down afterwards so any
any fibers on the surface will be
cleaned off because they wouldn't a
salty v would not go in there
in my experience whether there's some
science to back that up I don't know but
in my experience they won't go in if
it's untidy do another one there to make
sure that the drills relatively clean
nice and slow subscribe further the way
in take it out cleaned it off you can
see this is wet this wood and then once
that sanded off that will be a lovely
clean hull once we get all this fiber
off the surface and they end up kind of
looking and we've got one but like this
side of edge here that's what they'll
all look like which is what they seem to
one so this is halfway done now I've
sawed off the top section that I cut
downwards at an angle and stuck it on to
give it a nice sort of visual appearance
this will be have about 250 holes in it
of different sizes I'll put some legs on
it put a top on it and it should be
finished soon but so the key things are
a new drill bit don't use old drill bits
it just WebWork seasoned wood if
possible lay it horizontally and push
down it's so much easier and drill
slowly to start and then three or four
runs should get you the hole you want
pillared with a pillar drill it's easy
but as you can see from that log it's
huge so you'd never get that under my
current pillar drill my new one maybe
but even so manipulating it so that
you're moving the log each time to
underneath the drill bit would be a pain
so in this instance using a good hand
drill or even an electric hand drill if
you've got one that's already an
electric drill
a power drill would be even better
because it's just the revolutions are so
much higher than a battery run but my
drills and it's a it's a real walking
not Makita I used to have Nikita some
real walkie and they're really good so I
hope that helps I'll catch up with in a
moment so the stump habitat is all
complete I've left the front on here so
you can see what the log looked like
before and now I stuck the top bit back
on that was initially cut off in order
to make the cut right the way down it
sir fits perfectly so I just take this
off you can kind of see what it looks
like now and I think it's come up really
really well I love the design I think
it's beautiful to look at it's really
rough and ready and rustic which is nice
the holes are really clean after I've
used a flatbed sander to take the top
millimeter off to get rid of all those
scuffs that we spoke about earlier one
thing you might want to consider once
you've draws your holes if you are
drilling down which is normal with a
pillar drill to increase the pressure
and make it easy for yourself once
you're done the holes will have filled
with sawdust so turn it over and make
sure all the chambers are empty okay so
you can get a bit of wire and just
loosen up the stuff at the bottom and
just to empty it out the bees will
actually clean chambers but if it's too
tightly packed it might be hard for them
so yeah all done I think it's gonna be
really successful I love the fact that
it's wonky I put different and finally
at the bottom one on different height
each side to level it out a bit because
it was even worse than it is now but I
love the fact that it leans and the roof
isn't level so the waters naturally
going to runoff which is great so I'm
really pleased with it I don't think
there's much to know really just find an
old stump chop the face off let it dry
for a while truly a whole sand
put a roof on it in some feet and you've
got a really natural-looking
solitary bee hotel hope you enjoyed it
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Twitter stephen underscore where keep in
touch with any questions below and I'm
happy to answer them
it's getting sunny here oh it was nice
by you have a good spring summer and was
big soon
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