Not just honey bees

As far as my bee keeping goes, the last couple of years have been a bit strange.
It seems only yesterday I had a few hives, gave my honey away and that was about it.
Then a series of chance, unplanned events ended with me agreeing to take over the Farmer's Markets that someone used to do.
After a fairly steep learning curve I found that I wasn't too interested in selling honey but quite enjoyed meeting people and talking about the bees. Gradually I took more and more bee paraphernalia to markets and to the amusement of the other stall holders I spent more time talking about bees than selling honey.

I was then persuaded that I ought to give talks about honey bees and I find myself joining the WI Speakers List and also giving talks to schools, guide/brownie groups and other groups.

Although no expert on bees generally myself, I found from talking/meeting people they often had no idea what a 'bee' actually was and often didn't know what a honey bee looked like.
I came to the conclusion that if you asked someone to name a bee they would say a honey bee even though  in a recent poll two-thirds of people could not identify one.
Also if you asked someone to draw a bee it would probably be a bumblebee. And probably yellow and black.

So at the beginning of my talks I did a quick bit about identification and briefly mentioned solitary.
bees. People often didn't know they existed, were surprised about how many types there were and how different they were to honey bees or bumblebees.
I started to get more interested in solitary bees and finally bought a solitary bee house and set it up at the end of the garden.

At the end of the year it wasn't packed but there was enough to get me interested in the next stage - what to do with the cocoons.
Also, I thought that I could make something similar to the house I had bought and also found there were other designs that looked reasonably easy to make. Apparently the types often sold in garden centres were more pieces of furniture rather than anything practical and were in the words of the man who sold me my SB house, 'death traps'.
These other designs had the advantages of increasing the survival rates of the cocoons and also being able to observe the bees at work without disturbing them.

As I now have the Strategic Hub for Experimentation and Design or Shed as its known, I  have started to make the houses myself. There will be four different types and I have started to clear an area in my garden to put them. I'm making one for a friend and might take them to markets to sell.
My first attempt

Not as elegant as the garden centre ones but it works.

So, the blog will now also be about solitary bees and bumblebees as well as honey bees and I'll do something on the main varieties and differences between solitary and social bees.