What a BEE-utiful Garden!

Larry and I really enjoy placing garden decorations in in our garden. We have a large collection of fun little chatckies we have collected over the years. We have a flower made from horseshoes, several garden signs, welcoming you to our garden, bird feeders that we have purchased and some we have made. But our favorites are our bugs. We have started a collection of bowling ball bugs. We already had two ladybugs, but decided to add a bee. I decided to share this creation with you.




If you would like to make one of these for yourself, you will need the following things: Bowling ball, Copper Wire, Metal Screen, 26 gauge copper wire, latex paint/spray paint, wooden balls, Primer paint, clear caulk.





Primer the ball (we used spray paint, but you could use any latex paint)



Paint ball yellow (we used spray paint for this too)



Add black stripes (we used a outdoor safe latex paint)






Cut copper wire. You will need two that are 20" and two that are 24", bend into ovals:




"Sew" Screen mesh to "wing ovals" using copper wire (I found this was easiest if I cut a large enough square of mesh then tacked in one spot with wire, then started "sewing at the end, working my way around the wing, bending and trimming the mesh as I went):




We drilled new holes into the ball. You could use the existing holes, but this particular ball (which we found) had 12 hols in it! So we put those on the underbelly and drilled new holes. The other holes will be in the dirt. You need a total of three holes. Two for the wings, one for the antenna.




Fill holes with clear caulk and insert wings and antenna, if you need to add additional caulk:





Clean any caulk from around the ball:




We didn't have any wooden balls, I need to go out and get them. Paint them black and then place at the ends of the atenna's. The caulk needs at least 24 hrs. to dry.