Bill, I didn't put this up as being relevant to filling tires (even though the idea was spawned in that thread). I posted it as a "general interest topic" as there are a number of liquid cooled engines powering tractors. You hardly ever see anything mentioned about antifreeze, and the hazards involved with careless handling of it, or that it is a fluid requiring some maintenance. The linked web page covers a good deal more than just the safety aspects so I thought it might be interesting and informative to a few people.

Echoes: 1) Height or width of the overall house isn't very important for the average residential gardener. What -is- important is tube diameter and the presence of orienting marks for the bees, like colored straw tips, or patches of color, or a few straws sticking out further than the rest. These bees like irregular surfaces with lots of identifying marks. They can see blue, yellow, green, and black. 2) Ideal placement is where 1) it will get sun in the morning to help the bees warm up for flight and 2) It's protected from weather. I live in Seattle and place my bees on the south side of the house because they get the most sun there (7 hours during the warmer part of the day) Our storms in Seattle come in from the south, so that also means the houses are exposed to a lot of rain and wind, which 1) encourages them to disperse (fly away and not return to nest there.) and 2)creates great moist conditions for pollen mites. That was a bad idea last spring, which was cold and wet and windy. This year I'm placing some houses on the south side of the house and some on the east side to see which perform best. The east side gets five hours of sunlight during a colder part of the day. For the ones on the south side, if we're in for stormy weather, I have two options: 1) build a more protective roof over each house or 2) Take the entire house (bees and all) and put it in a bag in the fridge for about 24 hours. SARE's guide to Alternative Pollinators says you can do this for up to five days with no harm to the bees. We'll see how that idea works out. :-)

Plant 4 o'clocks -- the jap beetles devour them and then they (the japs) die. I tried it the first time this year, and it really works. There are dead beetles right on and all around my plants. They seem to die while they are in the act of chewing -- it's a beautiful thing. I have fewer this year than I have ever had. Oddly, however, I planted the yellow and white variety from seed, and they all bloomed fuschia. So I have some serious color clashing going on in my pastel garden, but they are worth it for the valuable service they provide.

I wish honeybee and aggressive weren't in the same sentence. Honeybees do sting, but only when we humans get so close to take their honey or disturb them in other ways. Confident beekeepers work in hives and harvest honey with hundreds of thousands of bees and rarely get stung. Skilled beekeepers dont always wear gloves when working in very busy hives Hornets are another story. I have been chased across the yard and into the house when I accidently disturbed a ground nest. If one wants to nurture pollinators but can't undertake the considerable work and expense of beekeeping, mason bees are wonderful. Non stinging, relatively inexpensive, also interesting to watch. Still nowhere near as fascinating or complex in their organization; mason bees build with mud, bees build geometrically perfect complex living quarters and make perfumed honey. Say mason bees are good pollinators, easy to care for and don't sting. But don't say honeybees are aggressive cause it just ain't so! idabean