Bee hotels
What are bee hotels?
Bee hotels are a place for solitary bees to lay their eggs. Once a bee lays an egg in the room, she will cover it with a door made of mud to protect it. This may happen several times in one room. Inside each section will be a supply of pollen that the hatched bees will eat, before breaking through the mud and flying away.
How do you build them?
There are different ways to make bee hotels depending on what kind of bee you are building it for. Regardless, you start by figuring out your design and materials, construct the rooms using stem bundles or wood nest blocks, figure out an appropriate location for it (southeast is good, 4-5 feet off the ground), and make sure it is safe from pesticides (consider wind). Make sure you maintain them after you build them to keep them clean and safe.
You want it to have some kind of cover/ roof for protection, or enclose it in a border/ box. Once you have a frame, you add the ‘rooms’. For drilling, until you know what kinds of bees you have around you, make holes of all diameters (eg for a 1/8 inch diameter hole it can be 3-4 inches deep, but if it’s 3/8 inch diameter make it 4-6 inches deep). If the hole isn’t deep enough the original bee will only lay male eggs.
Make sure you keep them small enough to maintain, otherwise you will attract pests and make it easier for disease to spread. Replace the nesting sections regularly. Ensure that the material you are using isn’t pressure treated (chemicals), and if you are using reeds, make sure that there are no splinters in them. If you find that birds are attacking the hotel, you can cover the entrance with wire mesh about an inch from the holes.
Here is a great youtube tutorial on making a bee hotel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtnRMNt3Mog
Did you know that Toronto is the first Canadian affiliate of Bee City, therefore committed to raising the profile of the pollinator protection movement?
References/ for more information
1. Youtube video: Why you need a bee hotel (& how to make it), by Gardener Scott
2. https://pollinators.msu.edu/publications/building-and-managing-bee-hotels-for-wild-bees/
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3. https://modernfarmer.com/2017/02/build-native-bee-hotel/
4. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/build-your-own-bee-hotel/ #:~:text=Bee%20hotels%20are%20places%20for%20solitary%20bees%20to%20make%20their %20nests.&text=Solitary%20bees%20are%20much%20less,to%20cover%20the%20entrance%2 0hole.
5. https://www.gardenmyths.com/bee-hotels-really-work/