Taylor Guitars Gives Bees A Chance

[riverbee]

Taylor guitars is a huge producer of guitars based out of El Cajon, California. i receive a quarterly magazine from Taylor a few times a year because i purchased one of their guitars. i do play guitar, and am a fan of martin guitars and own a couple of martins.

anyway received the recent quarterly magazine from taylor guitars (wood and steel), and this article caught my attention:

GIVES BEES A CHANCE. (can't get it online right now so will quote what the article was about:)

"Guests who tour the Taylor factory often ask what we do with our scrap wood. Typically, excess wood pieces that can't be used for other guitar-related parts go into our industrial wood chipper, and twice per week a local nursery retrieves our wood chips and sawdust.

Recently we connected with a small local business that has found another eco-friendly outlet for the mahogany and blocks we cut in the process of milling our neck blanks: shelter for bees.

As you might have read in the news, we have a shortage of honey bees in the U. S. The causes are not conclusively know, but some indicators include disease, nutritional issues, and the use of pesticides.  While hive-dwelling honey bees get much of the attention, the honey bee is actually just one species. In fact, of the 20,000 bee species in the world (with 4,000 species in the U.S., according to a joint report from the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the non-profit organization Pollinator Partnership). 90 percent are solitary bees that live alone. That's why Candace Vanderhoff, an architect with a passion for nature and regenerative systems, felt compelled to create solo bee shelters. And as it turns out our mahogany end-cut blocks make great prefab homes for them.

Most native bees are considered "super pollinators" - they're up to 60 times more efficient at pollination than honey bees due to their unique ability to collect and distribute pollen.  In the U. S. native bees pollinate about 80 percent of all flowering plants and nearly 75 percent of all fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

But with habitat loss in certain regions, the bees have an increasingly harder time finding a place to nest and lay their eggs."

in short the owner of the company(Candace Vanderhoff/solobees.com reached out to taylor guitars, and taylor guitars was happy to put wood taylor couldn't use to build guitars to good use.

"Her bee shelters consist of our blocks of mahogany-upcycled as nesting blocks - that are drilled with holes to provide nesting cells for the bees to lay ther eggs"


see for yourself, these are pretty upscale living quarters for any native bee:

SoloBee Native Bee Shelter

interesting website and interesting interactive web map of where some of her native bee shelters are.

[Mikey N.C.]

Great idea.
Taylor makes a sweet guitar,  I've played one once.

[riverbee]

mikey thanks, it is a cool idea.

i have one taylor guitar (6 string), it's a pretty thing and sweet sounding, fun to play and an older 12 string martin, always been my favorite.

[Mikey N.C.]

Wish i could afford a Taylor  . yes i still play old yamaha nylons classical. Wide neck. Helped so much to play 12 string,  haven't played one in yrs. Also have yamaha steel string, cheap but have distinguished sounds. I can get classical to sound willie!

[riverbee]

yep those taylor guitars are spendy, so are martins, well any guitar is!

the taylor i purchased was a GS mini.......about 500 bucks.

Taylor GS MINI

koa wood, not sure if this was a limited edition? but these little gits are fun to play and full of great sound and sometimes can't put this thing down! i purchased this cuz my martin 12 string is a bit of an heirloom, irreplaceable, and not something i want to travel with anymore, ding up,  or have stolen. the taylor GS mini is just for fun and i find myself picking this up and playing on it frequently.  it's a fun little guitar!