One of my most important tasks so far has been repairing the teaching garden’s “bee hotel” — a structure that gives native solitary bees a place to nest.
A drunk driver destroyed the hotel in a hit-and-run accident on March 8th of this year. The hotel broke free from its foundation and its roof came off. Some of the wood in the hotel’s main structure had broken, too. Since its construction in 2017, the bee hotel was one of the teaching garden’s main attractions.
This week, Roger and I took the first steps to repair the hotel. Using white oak boards from Brett Chedzoy, we replaced two of the hotel’s main ‘legs’ that broke when it was toppled off its foundation. We repaired each shelf, making sure they were level. We also repaired the flat wall on the backside of the hotel so it has a place for our handout boxes. Next time, we will need to replace the roof and bolt the hotel back on its original foundation.
