We design our blocks so that they are easy to clean. They are pre-split, but held together with UV resistant bands so that they are tightly sealed.
The need to clean them mostly comes from the agricultural sector though, and isn't required for small habitats with only a handful of nesting sites. My partner is a wild bee researcher, and they've been using these in the field for about 60 years. As long as the density is low, the requirement for cleaning them is optional.
Hey there, I actually make these homes! Unfortunately, carpenter bees don't have any interest in the model we have now as they like to make their own holes in softwoods. I'll be working with a professor that specializes in larger carpenter bees (Xylocopa) over the winter to build some habitats that are suitable for them, though, and plan to test them at her research site in the spring.
As I've started to work with larger data systems, I find myself relying more on Java geospatial libraries than I have in the past instead of Python/R. My preferred language is Scala though, which is luckily largely compatible with Java.
As I've tried to sort out the ecosystem, I was struck by the lack of examples and documentation. So, I'm going to start posting intro tutorials as I figure them out. Hope you find them useful!
This was my first major project using D3 so there was a bit of a learning curve to get it to do what I wanted, but I was happy with the results in the end. I relyied heavily on D3Kit to allow the charts to be responsive, and Google Docs/Tabletop to manage the data.
While a lot of the charts appear simple, there was a lot of work done long before I could even get to the point of making a plot by combining all the different tax rates. It turned out to be a much larger project than I expected.
