All posts by Creative Woodcraft (Ian)

Increase Your Garden Harvest with Leafcutter Bees

Gentle-Natured Bee.

A friendly garden companion, this gentle bee doesn’t mind curious people. It rarely stings, except in defense of its life. Its safe around children and pets. You won’t need special clothing to have fun watching this lively pollinator.

Our solitary bee houses make great gifts for Christmas! Buy today while leafcutter bee cocoons are available!

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Amazing pollinator for summer food and flowers

This tiny, busy bee outperforms her honey bee cousin for pollinating summer flowering fruits, vegetables and flowers.

You’ll love the ease and joy of raising Leafcutter bees. It takes just a couple hours of care each year.

Our passion is raising Leafcutter bees and encouraging other solitary bees to increase garden yields. Our vision is to change the way we pollinate to protect our environment and sustain our food supply. Join us on our pollinator journey!

 Whether you are trying to introduce Leafcutter bees or plan to encourage native solitary bees to your backyard, our bee houses and nesting material sets are a great way to start!Leafcutter Bee Cells Flyer x50

Bee-Mail

It only takes a couple hours of your time within the year to raise and harvest leafcutter bees. But we all get busy. Rather than trying to remember, we have a free newsletter that tells you what to do when each month.

It’s easy to sign up for “Bee-Mail”



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FAQ – Bumble Bees

Q/ Are you able to supply bumble bee’s with the boxes, or do you know who can supply?

Answer:

Commercially produced bumble bees can be purchased as a ready established colony from companies such as biobees, but generally only live for 4 to 8 weeks. They come in a self contained non permanent cardboard type box.

Question:
Recently we have asked New Zealand leading entomologist weather these commercially produced bumble bees can naturally produce further queens that will leave the colony and take up residence in Creative Woodcraft Bumble bee nesting box?

Answer:
“Regarding commercially-produced bumble bee colonies, yes indeed if they grow on naturally they can produce new queens, and yes these queens will seek out nesting sites in the same area. Further, there is evidence that new queens that emerge from man-made hives may indeed be attracted to other similar man-made hives within which to start their own nests”

Below are a couple of links that maybe of interest.

Is your garden lacking Buzz

helping-kiwi-gardeners-encourage-native-bees

Question: 
How do we get bumble bees to use the nesting box?
Answer:
The Bumble bee nesting box could be looked upon in the same light as a bird nest box: When we place a bird nesting box in the garden we can’t make the bird use it, we have to just let nature take its course. This is the same for the bumble bee nesting box.
 
By providing a suitable habitat you will increase the chances of  bumble bee queens seeking it out and starting its own nest, in turn increasing the population of bumble bees on your property.  To increase chances of occupancy the more boxes that are placed out the higher the occupancy rate.

A butterfly-friendly garden

Prepare to salute the admirals

By Meg Liptrot

2:04 PM Sunday Oct 5, 2014

Red admiral

A white hebe proves irresistible to a passing red admiral butterfly. Photo / BOPT

Most gardeners don’t plan to grow caterpillar food, but our precious plants sometimes end up exactly that. In contrast, a butterfly gardener will intentionally grow food for caterpillars and is thrilled to find chomps taken from the plants in their garden, taking it as proof there are butterflies on the way.

Butterfly host plants are not always the most attractive additions to a garden and sometimes they’re downright hostile. Take nettles, for example. They were banished from our gardens for their antisocial ways but are essential food for a couple of our prettiest native butterflies.

Aotearoa is not known for its flamboyant butterflies, unlike those from tropical parts of the planet. Many of our native butterflies are small and their colours more subtle. Monarch butterflies are the exception, but you could consider these butterflies international citizens.

Red and yellow admirals have captured my heart and it is the biggest thrill to see one. Perhaps this species is called “admiral” because the butterfly looks like it is standing to attention.

Admiral butterflies jet about at speed as if they’re on a mission.

Butterfly threats

Habitat loss is probably the most important issue affecting butterfly populations, so having muehlenbeckia, tussocks and a few nettles in our landscaping is a great way to support our native butterflies. Flower gardens are on the come-back to support our honeybees and they are equally important for butterflies.

Buterfly Shelter Feeder

Click Here to buy a Butterfly Feeder/ shelter

Butterflies take a hit whenever wasp numbers are higher than usual and we had a long hot summer last year. Exotic paper wasps are a predator, as are German wasps. Some wasps are considered beneficial to an organic garden as they provide balance and prevent unwanted pest caterpillars from destroying cabbages. Many native wasps are solitary species and are not such a threat to butterflies.

A butterfly-friendly garden

Butterflies like a sheltered, sunny garden filled with a wide range of flowers and a water source.

I once visited a tropical garden in Yandina on the Sunshine Coast, and was fascinated by a large pale blue butterfly sipping water from a puddle on a sun-lit paving slab.

When designing your butterfly garden, place a flat stone or paver in a sunny and sheltered north-facing spot, with a shallow saucer of water, or a stone with depressions in it for water to sit in.

Some butterfly enthusiasts recommend placing rocks in a birdbath so butterflies have a place to land.

Plant a mix of annuals, perennials, grasses and shrubs in your garden to provide a range of heights and staggered flowering stages to provide nectar from spring to late autumn.

At our environment centre garden we planted a patch of nettles, purple-flowering scabiosa and ageratum under a small damson tree with Hebe stricta and muehlenbeckia growing in the shrubbery behind.

A short bamboo panel protects unsuspecting visitors from getting too close to the nettles.

This butterfly patch adjoins our bee garden, which is filled with flowers from spring through to autumn.

I was excited to see a yellow admiral for the first time in the garden last year. We often see monarchs as we have some swan plants, too.

Flowers that butterflies love

Butterfly gardens require plants with flowers a butterfly can land on easily, and florets to allow it to sip nectar with its long proboscis.

Butterfly garden favourites include: rudbeckia, hebe, buddleia, cineraria, echinacea, monarda (bee balm), ageratum, alyssum, dianthus, scabiosa, salvia, sedum, single marigolds, chrysanthemums, verbena, wallflower and zinnia. You can buy seeds – including butterfly plant mix, nettle, swan plant and other types of milkweed – from the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust, which also offers a course on butterfly gardening.

Caterpillar food

An essential piece in a butterfly garden jigsaw is the planting of host plants for caterpillars.

Admiral butterflies lay their eggs only on nettle species.

The yellow admiral caterpillar favours the exotic nettle Urtica dioica; the red admiral prefers native nettles. The Oratia Native Plant Nursery stocks these plants.

Put on some gloves when planting them.

Monarch caterpillars prefer swan plants and other milkweeds.

Ringlet and tussock butterflies prefer native tussock from the Chionochloa and Poa genus.

For Copper butterflies plant Muehlenbeckia species.

Blue butterflies and their relatives rely on plants from the legume family such as clover and yellow-flowering trefoil.

Find out more about native butterflies and their host plants:forestandbird.org.nz/files/file/Butterfly%20Manual.pdf or nzbutterfly.info

Herald on Sunday

By Meg Liptrot

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Creative Woodcraft Welcomes you to … Our Native Bees!

Are you curious about our Native Bees and want to learn more? Have you noticed a decline in pollinators and flowers in your yard?

Did you know that much of our food supply and many of the flowers and animals we love could not exist without pollinators like bees and butterflies?

The bad news is that honey bees are quickly disappearing, but the good news is that our Native Bees are extremely efficient pollinators.SONY DSC

It’s time to Bee a pollinator, and we are dedicated to spreading the word that our Native Bees are an excellent supplement to honey bees as pollinators of our food supply. Learn how you can help increase our native bee populations by providing Native Bees with healthy nesting sites and habitats.

Our native pollinators are willing, able, and healthy – all they need are nesting sites! Urban sprawl, intensive agriculture and pesticide use are destroying their natural nesting sites and reducing the diversity of wildflowers they need to survive.

Even though there are numerous species of native bees in New Zealand, many of them have declining populations simply because they can no longer find enough sites to raise their young. In today’s modern gardens ground nesting solitary bees are battling inches of mulch and plastic weed barriers and those bees that lay their eggs in cavities – like the Leafcutter Bee and the beneficial Mason Wasp are losing their habitats faster than they can reproduce.

So if you’d like to join us in our quest to encourage our native bees – and see your garden explode with blossoms as a result – please provide a healthy habitat for them by purchasing one of our custom-designed Hand-crafted Creative Woodcraft Bee Houses!

At Creative Woodcraft we provide a selection of products that will make raising Bumble Bees, Leafcutter Bees fun, easy and economical!

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Helping Kiwi gardeners encourage native bees

Passionate about the future of bees in New Zealand, Creative Woodcraft has teamed up with a pollination expert to help Kiwi gardeners encourage native bees, introduced bees and bumble bees to pollinate their backyards.

Bumble bee nesting box promotional Image

Designed with the assistance of Dr Barry Donovan, of Donovan Scientific Insect Research in Lincoln, Creative Woodcraft offers leafcutter bee cells to the home gardener to help increase pollination of our fruit trees, flower gardens and vegetable gardens.

Click Here To view our range of Pollination Solutions

“We have designed a range of products including solitary bee houses and bumble bee nesting boxes that will encourage our native bees to take up residence in our backyards, helping increase pollination and growing the native bee population in New Zealand.” says Ian from Creative Woodcraft.

“By providing a suitable habitat, a growth in population will occur and positively benefit the number of pollinators out there.”

Creative Woodcraft’s solitary bee houses include a variety of nesting tunnel diameters, suitable for hosting up to six species of bees and three species of beneficial wasp.

Click here for details about the Creative Woodcraft range, or to place an order.

Register with Creative Woodcraft online and receive a free, downloadable e-book to learn further about the benefits of these nesting products.

PRE ORDER NOW TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT!

New Zealand’s only distributor of Leafcutter Bee Cells to the Home Gardener.

Bumble Bee Nesting Box

Leafcutter Bee Cells        solitary bee house Creative Woodcraft