Pallet Habitats: A beginners guide for the birds and the bees

Reusing pallets helps reduce the demand of virgin wood materials and keeps them out of landfills. Here is how to make a bee or bird box habitat to benefit the birds and bees right in your backyard out of wood pallets.

Bird House

Attracting local birds to your yard is easy if you provide a safe & weather resistant bird pallet habitat in your yard. Birds serve as a natural pest control, keeping the insect population in check. While it is still very wintery for many North Americans if you’re looking to start early consider designing a house for chickadees. These year round birds generally require a small house – 5″ square house with an 8″ height and  a 1 1/8″ circular opening. For placement, consider a natural habitation height between 5′ – 15′ off the ground.

Bee Hotel

Create a sunny and weather protected bee pallet area in your yard to support the solitary bee population as these bees are very useful in pollinating fruit & flower crops. Unlike, bumblebees and honeybees, these types of bees build individual nests. These harmless, non-aggressive bees tend to habitate in sandy banks, piles of sand, or crumbling mortar. Others use the hollow stems of dead plants such as brambles, or tunnels previously bored into dead wood by beetles. Layer pallets with materials such as branches, hollow stems, etc. In larger wood materials, drill holes between 1/8″ to 3/8″ for these bees to nest.

Raised Garden Bed

Raised gardens have many advantages, including naturally deterring weed growth. Also, they tend to produce better results as plant roots have ample room to grow in uncompacted soil. Consider planting veggies & herbs to reduce your carbon footprint; eliminating trips to the grocery store. Like any garden, it will benefit from birds and bees; birds will maintain insect population while the bees have an ample food & pollination source, keeping your plants healthy throughout the growing season.

With any DIY wood pallet project, always consider where it came from. Chemically treated wood contains harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, which is not ideal for your health, food or nature. When upcycling your bee or bird pallets isn’t possible, donate or recycle to help reduce the need for harvesting trees.