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Feedback & Opinions on Bee House, please? GCSE

selena.das04selena.das04 Posts: 11
edited March 2020 in Wildlife gardening
For my DT GCSE I have created a bee house for solitary bees (which do not produce honey but do pollinate flowers). This conservation home is to provide the bees with shelter from the rain and sun in addition to being a place to sleep or simply roam. The water pot is so the bees can drink water and have access to a water source in the summer months. This product is intended for use in the countryside. Please could you offer any feedback or opinions, e.g. likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses etc., for my product? It will be greatly appreciated and I will input the responses into my GCSE portfolio!



Thank you for your time,
Selena x

Posts

  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    Bees can't read so I would take the sign "Bee Hotel" off of the top, and put a slanted roof on, overlapping the bottom by a couple of inches to give shelter from rain hitting the front of the bee hotel. The water pot I would make a lot shallower, a very flat dish to form a shallow puddle, possibly with a lip on so the bees have somewhere to stand while drinking, or inset into the base.  I would get rid of the palm trees on aesthetic grounds.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited March 2020
    Think the palm trees are a visual joke ... a play on the term ‘hotel’ as shown in the similarity in the design to the high rise hotels at so many modern beach resorts. 

    Speaking as someone with art and design qualifications, I think the visual aspect is quite a clever idea 👍 

    Not to everyone’s taste maybe ... but I don’t think GCSE’s have a ‘good taste’ criterion. I do hope not anyway 😉 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I agree the water needs to be shallower ... the solitary bees in our garden stand on pebbles in the shallow edge of the wildlife pond. 
    Maybe something that was more like a beach perhaps ... to continue the ‘hotel’ theme 🏝 or 🏖  🐝. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • blissnguiessyblissnguiessy Posts: 3
    Hi Selena! As a fellow DT Student, I have to say  that your "Bee Hotel" is amazing. I love how you have different elements to your bee conservation, and it looks very durable. I'm just wondering if it is weatherproof (is there any varnish) and if you have different sized holes as Solitary Bees range in size. Overall, nice work! 
  • selena.das04selena.das04 Posts: 11
    blissnguiessy said:
    Hi Selena! As a fellow DT Student, I have to say  that your "Bee Hotel" is amazing. I love how you have different elements to your bee conservation, and it looks very durable. I'm just wondering if it is weatherproof (is there any varnish) and if you have different sized holes as Solitary Bees range in size. Overall, nice work! 
    Thank you for the kind feedback! The whole product is waterproof as plastic is waterproof regardless as is bamboo and all wood ietms have been coated with weatherproof varnish. I have a few different sized holes although they are all roughly the with the same diametre range. An improvement could be to vary these hole sizes more?
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