Participants at a recent beekeeping workshop in Rossland drill blocks of wood with various sized holes. Others made nests out of bundles of hollow plants, or pencil sized rolls of paper.
Later in the summer, many species of wild bees will be able to use these tubes to lay eggs that will grow into larvae and hatch as bees the following year.
Lynn Westcott, a local entomologist with a passion for bees, said BC is blessed with 400 species of wild bee, of tens of thousands worldwide, but many populations are crashing and our help is needed to protect habitat.
We can build nests, from boxes for bumble bees to tube condos for mason bees. We can also plant gardens of flowering plants, especially in an overall design that produces blooms throughout the growing season.