millertime

Mason bee drama...so I'm putzing around the garden last week, and happened to glance up at the mason bee house to see this!
Uh-oh! So I take it down to investigate further...looks like some woodpecker figured this for another feeder of some sort! "Oh look, this nice lady is providing us with these yummy larvae, along with all the suet and seeds." Crap! Okay, time for some drastic action!So I take out the damaged tubes and replace them with new ones...wow...they really wreaked some havoc here!
Now to put up a barrier that the bees can get through, but the woodpeckers cannot. I almost just left the silver basket as good enough, but downey woodpeckers are fairly small, not to mention nuthatches...and I have the red-breasted nuthatch, who's smaller still! So the green coated chicken wire was added for good measure.

Okay-all set! I sure hope my mason bees have enough season and inclination left to fill more tubes "post-disaster"...but worst case, well, there's always next year I guess! :-(