We have a fairly large garden, and if you have a garden, you know you need pollinators. The more pollinators you have, the more robustly and better your fruiting plants reproduce. Pollinators take many forms, notably hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, and most importantly, bees. Wasps, too, but fuck those things. Wasps are assholes. Anyhow, we attended a talk on native (that is to say North American) bees given by Native Seed Search a couple weeks ago, and we learned a couple things. Notably, the more native bees you have, the better your garden does, and the fact that if you want more, you need to give them the proper habitat. I won't bore you with the highlights, because a simple DuckDuckGo search about native bees will tell you literally everything you ever wanted to know about them, and then some. But suffice it to say, I've gone mildly Native Bee Crazy. After looking at the various commercial options, I thought it'd be cheaper to just make my own little bee condos. (AirBeeAndBee, as someone pointed out on Instagram.)
Most bee condos look like bird houses with the front cut off. But when I think "bee," I think "honeycomb." (I know these aren't the sorts of bees that make honey, but even so, if they didn't want to be associated with that, they shouldn't be so hot about being bee-shaped.) I mathed it out so I could make one Bee Barn from a single piece of eight-foot 8 x 1. Six pieces cut at a 30 degree angle gives me a hex.
Then it's off to the CNC router to make the actual beepartments. 2' of the board gives me four; I needed five for the size I chose, but since I made two beeboxen, I actually cut three two-foot sections, giving me a total of 12, and I chose the best 10 for the two boxes. If I was doing One Board One Box, I would just adjust the file to cut five in one blow. Back to the table saw to separate them, and cut a piece of 1/4" plywood (also on the CNC) for the hex-shaped back and the top of the beecartridge, and we're in business. A light wash of paint (on the surround, not the cartridge) to protect it from the elements, and BeeBuilding 9000 is open for business.
I haven't gone completely around the bend to the point where I'm going to mail-order bees (something that is absolutely a thing, although they're surprisingly expensive). I'm hoping they just move in. We shall see, I suppose.