Come on, please own up!

I find it funny that there is so much advice for gardeners about how they can attract wildlife onto their plot.  Our hotel and restaurant is fully booked all year round and we never have to advertise.  You name it, we host it and usually there is more wildlife at Springfield than we can cope with.  I have, on several occasions, considered putting up a ‘No Vacancies’ sign but I am not sure if our local Garden Club would approve.

Some friends of ours are not aware that our garden has a regular clientele and have kindly given us various bird feeders, bird boxes and seed cakes in all shapes and sizes.  However, it is the insect box that has become the most intriguing.

The insect box consists of a wooden frame stuffed with hollow lengths of bamboo cane and the hope is that insects are attracted by the small ‘rooms’ and take up residence there for the winter months.  Insects are very small and although I see them darting around the flower beds I have never spotted any of them crawling about the insect box or laying any eggs.  Still, the box looks nice hanging from one of the old damson trees and we get a tick in the box for ‘attracting wildlife’.

However, this summer, ‘someone’ in the animal, bird or insect kingdom is playing games with us because every couple of days we find the bamboo canes from the insect box, scattered all over the grass.  Being garden-proud we tidy up and put them all back.  At first, fitting them back into the box was a challenge because the bamboo canes are different sizes and we finished up with one fat piece of bamboo cane and a very tiny space in which to slot it. 

But practise makes perfect and for the past few weeks, Doc and I have had competitions to see how long it takes us to re-assemble the insect box.  (Doc is very smarmy now that he can do it in less than 2 minutes.)  The game is like one of those pointless activities from that old TV show, The Krypton Factor and for me, the novelty has worn off.  It has become intensely irritating to have to stack the bamboo canes when I could be weeding the borders or picking blackberries.  Doc on the other hand, probably inspired by the Olympics, loves it.  His current boast is that he can do it one-handed.

Either the culprit has to own up to this tom-foolery or I will have to install CCTV.  One way or another, I will find out who is emptying the insect box and he or she will be evicted from the property.  If there is anyone out there who has any information which may be useful in my enquiries, please let me know.  There is a reward – one very attractive insect box!