Make a Native Bee Nesting Sculpture

There are a variety of ways to nurture native bees in our gardens. I like to combine native bee nesting units into sculptural designs. This one starts with galvanized steel roof flashing and plastic plumbing tubing.   

Fist, I cut a piece of the plastic tube to be just a little longer that the cardboard nesting tubes that can be purchased from Crown Bees. I cut a paper pattern to guide the design of flower petals. 

I used this to cut petals from galvanized steel.

I fashioned the first layer of petals around the plastic tube.

Using the paper pattern, I cut additional layers of petals and leaves. They were epoxied them to the sculpture.

I used a pointalism technique to paint the sculpture with exterior house paint. We installed our Bee Nest Sculpture on a tree near our pollinator garden. We filled the cone with nesting tubes.