Bee Bath Idea

6/22/2020

Bee Bath made with Pal Tiya Premium and Oxides

Ever wanted to be kind to your pollinating garden guests?
We've been playing in the Pal Tiya studio recently and we wanted to share this Bee Bath idea.

Here's a way to make a gorgeous Aztec inspired bee bath with Pal Tiya Premium.

In colored pencil, draw your design out on paper, then onto an old lampshade. You can just see the lines against the black surface.
Then wax the lampshade so the bowl will come off. Vaseline or automotive wax will work.

Prepare and make 5 colors of Pal Tiya Premium scagliola with oxides in small batches. Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and White (of course you can choose any color you'd like).

See here for ratio of powder to oxides.
We also have a video of this technique here

Using tiny Pal Tiya Premium snakes (roll out on a slightly damp towel) of various colors, lay in the outlines of the design.
Then with tiny daubs of product, fill in each space with a different color. Then use a fork to completely smoosh together all the daubs. This won't move the surface touching the lampshade, but it will fuse the back of them nicely.

Bee Bath process made with Pal Tiya Premium and Oxides. Scagliola techniquesPicture

This was wrapped in plastic for 3 days till it was strong enough to be removed from the lampshade. Our studio was getting very cold recently so we had to wait a little longer. The warmer your studio space is the faster Pal Tiya Premium will cure so you may well be able to remove the next day or day after :)

Now, the inside surface had a few imperfections. A walnut sized black batch of Pal Tiya Premium was made and then rubbed on the inside surface. This filled in the tiny gaps and air bubbles and, honestly, took the surface from just okay to simply gorgeous. It began as garish and became old and authentic.

We then did a full and proper cure.

A final bit of sanding with 100 grit made it sweet.

You can clearly see the colored outlines, the rough daubs and the black filler.

IMPORTANT STEP:
Bee's need very shallow water to drink from so please ensure you fill your bee bath with rocks, pebbles or even clear marbles and you won't risk drowning your little guests!
Now we understand that you may want to use this bowl for any other purpose in your garden and that's just fine. This is just to give you some creative ideas.

What we did with the leftover product to experiment:
Rather than waste the remaining daubs of Pal Tiya Premium, we had fun using the leftovers as a finger painting exercise on the back. Each daub was fused and blended in with a fork to see what wild textures and color patterns could be made. This also brought the thickness up to a nice 6 mm.

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4 Comments

Diana Hoyt

6/22/2020 06:10:32 am

This is great! Thank you for sharing! Would love to know more about surfaces which can be covered ( and how) using this material. For example, can it cover plastic, as in plastic figures?

The Pal Tiya Crew link

6/22/2020 07:28:43 am

Thanks Diana,

It sure can. However, Pal Tiya Premium has no tensile strength right at the beginning until it starts to cure and harden so covering the plastic with crushed tinfoil will ensure the grip is good!
We do this over plastic because our medium is sensitive to moisture as it cures and woods and plastics can draw too much water out of the product as it cures so that's also a good way to prevent this by adding the crushed tinfoil. Great way to get details too!

Joan Green

6/22/2020 10:19:48 am

Is your clay now creature friendly? When you first got started, it was thought that the medium was not ready for birdbath due to the chemical composition of the medium that this clay is made of. Bees are very sensitive to chemicals. We have a bee keeper behind our property with three hives. If someone could direct my question about the safety of this clay for that purpose. I had originally purchased mine for that reason but hesitated and then decided it was best to use it differently.
Thanks,
Joan

6/24/2020 04:54:03 am

Hi Joan,

Pal Tiya Premium is cement based, and has been developed to be far more sculptable, frost proof and water resistant than ordinary concrete when mixed and cured correctly.

Birds, bees and other wildlife are around cement and concrete regularly as part of the everyday urban environment.

While developed specifically for outdoor statuary and sculpture, people are beginning to apply the material for other uses; including decorative bird houses and bird baths and bee baths. All the same design considerations are required when planning a piece that is going to be used to interact with nature in some way. For example – the depth of the baths, their positioning away from predators etc. all need to be taken into account.

Some people are using their concrete sealant of choice to add a layer on top of any colorants they have used. These vary from country to country and we recommend checking and following the manufacturer’s guidelines as appropriate.

The only straight out ‘No’ we have is for aquatic use. We have tested Pal Tiya Premium’s use in water for aquatic life and have concluded that like many other cement based materials the pH of the water remains too alkaline to be able to recommend it’s use with fish.

Bird and bee baths should have their water changed on a regular basis irrespective of the material used to make them to avoid the growth of algae and bacteria.

This resource online: https://www.honeybeesuite.com/water-sources-for-bees/
discusses how bees have known to take water directly from pools on top of freshly poured concrete.

Apparently bees can taste and seek out water they find beneficial; whether it has elevated salt content or minerals to add to their nutritional needs.

Other online bee specialists discuss that the bees may not be drinking the water, but using the water to cool their hive through evaporative action.

The bottom line, it seems that bees know what they can and cannot drink, whether it’s dark brackish water with mud and nutrients, or even chlorine laced pool water.

Hope this helps

Bee Bath Idea

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