Insect hotel: build a buzzing home for pollinators in your garden
An insect hotel is a fun and functional addition to any garden. It offers shelter for pollinators and beneficial bugs that help keep pests in check and support thriving plants.
Here’s how to build an insect hotel
1. Build the frame
Build a small shelter using leftover boards and various natural materials, such as dried twigs, leaves, pinecones, and forest litter. Nail the boards together to form a frame that looks like a small apartment building.
2. Add wire mesh on the walls
Staple chicken or rodent wire to the back of the frame. Then fill each layer with bedding, such as pinecones, leaves, and needle litter. Staple wire to the front too, so your soft bedding stays in place.
3. Add some padding to the insect hotel
Twist some dry hay or straw into a ball, forming a small hollow in the center. Wrap hemp twine around it to hold the nest together. Hang it from a branch or place it at the base of a shrub.
4. Choose suitable plants
Encourage beneficial insects by planting species that offer pollen and nectar. Showy stonecrop, leopard plant, and coneflowers, for example, attract pollinators.
5. Build a home for bees
Wild bees are fantastic helpers when it comes to pollinating for example fruit trees. They don’t sting humans because their stingers are too weak to pierce human skin, so you can confidently welcome them into your garden.
It’s easy to create a lodge for these buzzing friends with a drill. Make holes of various sizes in a sturdy piece of wood. If you’d like to decorate the front, draw a pattern or letter with a waterproof thick marker. Bend a piece of wire into a loop and staple it to the back. Then hang it wherever you like, for example on an apple tree trunk.
Joy and benefits from bugs
- Take part in protecting the nature. When yards are cleared of leaves, dried plant matter, and twigs, insects lose many hiding and nesting places. Insect hotels are great in tidy urban environments, as they encourage insects to settle.
- Beneficial insects include ladybugs, butterflies, lacewings, and bees among others.
- The little buzzers help with pollination. For example, fruit trees and berry bushes need them to produce fruit and berries.
- Welcomed insects help maintain the natural balance by limiting large-scale pest invasions in the garden.
- It’s fascinating to watch insects come and go in the hotel. Children especially enjoy observing their busy bustle.
