Final run from Keith’s shed • In 19 active carts • 28 left
Keith's Hand-Built Hollow Keeper Bee Hotel
Keith's Hand-Built Hollow Keeper Bee Hotel
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Keith's Hand-Built Hollow Keeper Bee Hotel
Hand-Built in a Shed in the Adelaide Hills — Never Fumigated, Never Treated
Keith Pethick, 74, Lenswood, South Australia. Forty years a cabinetmaker. Six of them building nothing but nesting boxes for native bees — ever since the Cudlee Creek fire burnt out every hollow on his hillside. The arthritis has made the decision for him. This is the final run.
“The fire didn’t kill the bees. It burnt their houses down. Every hollow stem, every dead limb, every borer hole in every old redgum post out the back — gone in one afternoon. Everyone was looking at the trees. Nobody was looking at the holes in them.”
— Keith Pethick, Lenswood, Adelaide Hills
What Arrives
Six Things That Decide Whether the Brood Gets Out
“I have pulled apart a lot of failed bee hotels in this country and the failures repeat: bores drilled to European sizes that are far too wide for our species, tunnels under 100 mm so the whole nest sits in the predation zone, treated timber, and imported stock carrying fumigation residue that native bees simply will not go near. Untreated local timber, hand-dressed bores under 10 mm running deeper than 100 mm, and a sealed rear panel deal with every one of those. That is the specification. It is not complicated. It is just rarely done.”
— Dr. Hugh Marchetti, invertebrate conservation ecologist
Suits
Why It Lasts
- Untreated solid cedar, 19 mm. Not plywood, not a laminate, not treated pine. The same timber used in boatbuilding for a century, for the same reason.
- Solid timber roof, copper at the ridge. Plastic roofs go brittle in one Australian summer. Cedar planks with a hand-folded copper flashing over the ridge seam outlast the box they sit on.
- Gauge-checked bores. Every tunnel is run through with a turned brass rod before the box leaves the shed. If the rod catches, the bore goes back on the bench.
- Sealed rear panel. Parasitoid wasps cannot reach the brood from behind, which is where populated hotels usually fail.
- Documented occupancy since 1997. One of Keith’s boxes has been full every summer on the same packing-shed wall at Forest Range for twenty-nine seasons.
30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee
Hang it up and see what turns up. If it is not right for any reason at all, send it back within 30 days for a full refund — no conditions, no questions, no mucking about.
Details
| Material | Solid untreated western red cedar, 19 mm wall on every face |
| Roof | Two solid cedar planks in a shallow gable, hand-folded copper flashing over the ridge |
| Dimensions | 20 × 18 × 20 cm |
| Bore diameters | 2.5 mm to 9.5 mm, graded across the face |
| Bore depth | Approx. 150 mm, all bores over the 100 mm minimum |
| Bore finish | Hand-dressed mirror finish, gauge-checked with turned brass rods |
| Rear panel | Sealed solid cedar, parasitoid-proof |
| Mounting | Flush-set heavy-gauge steel hook — hang, screw flat, or free-stand |
| Suits | Resin bees, leafcutter bees, masked bees, reed bees |
| Siting | East or north-east, approx. 1.5 m up, morning sun, afternoon shade |
| Care | Leave outside year-round. Do not bring indoors over winter. |
| Made in | Lenswood, Adelaide Hills, South Australia — never fumigated, never treated |
| Availability | Final run from Keith’s shed. No restock, no successor. |
Why This Is the Last Run
Why This Is the Last Run
A note from the shed:
Keith Pethick has been a cabinetmaker in the Adelaide Hills since he was seventeen, and he has been drilling nesting blocks for native bees since 1984 — more than two thousand of them, every one logged in a school exercise book. On 20 December 2019 the Cudlee Creek fire came through Lenswood. His shed survived. The old bush block behind it did not, and with it went every hollow stem, dead limb and borer-holed post the local cavity-nesting bees had to nest in. The following spring the apple blossom came in thick and almost nothing came to it. That is when the hobby became the work.
Osteoarthritis in both thumbs and wrists means there will be no further run. He can still dock and dress timber; he can no longer hand-dress the bores, and that is the one step the whole box lives or dies on. When the shelves along the back wall are bare, that is the end of it.
Free Australian Shipping
Free Australian Shipping
Free shipping right across Australia
- Delivery time: 3–7 business days, tracked
- Every box is hand-packed and ships from within Australia — it never passes through border fumigation
- Size: 20 × 18 × 20 cm, solid untreated western red cedar, 19 mm wall, hand-formed copper roof
- Bores 2.5–9.5 mm, over 100 mm deep, mirror-dressed and gauge-checked
- Flush-set steel hook: hang it, screw it flat, or stand it
- 30-day money-back guarantee — just email support@backroad-goods.com
Frequently Asked Questions
Got a question? Here’s how to reach us.
Got a question? Here’s how to reach us.
Email us anytime at support@backroad-goods.com. We answer Monday–Friday 9am–5pm and Saturday 10am–3pm (AEST). Whether it’s about your order, which wall to hang it on, or what has moved into it — a real person writes back.
Can I return it if it’s not for me?
Can I return it if it’s not for me?
Of course. 30-day money-back guarantee. Hang it up, live with it a few weeks, and if it isn’t right, email support@backroad-goods.com within 30 days for a full refund. No questions, and Australian shipping is free.
How is it made — and why does that matter here?
How is it made — and why does that matter here?
Keith docks and dresses solid untreated western red cedar to a 19 mm wall, drills each board on a bench press to a graded set of diameters from 2.5 to 9.5 mm, then hand-dresses every bore until the inside is glass-smooth and runs a turned brass rod through it to check. If the rod catches, the bore goes back on the bench. The roof is sheet copper, bent and dressed by hand. No treated pine, no CCA, no plywood, no glue, no lacquer.
It matters in Australia for one reason most people never hear about: almost every bee hotel sold here is imported, and imported timber and bamboo is fumigated at the border. That residue is why native bees will not move into them. A box built here never goes near a fumigation chamber.