Small is best when making a bee hotel
Size matters and small is best when it comes to bee hotels, manmade structures that provide nurseries for solitary bees.
Some people build palaces rather than mere hotels; huge structures made from several palates, sometimes with wire casing and elaborate roofs. While the ingenuity of the designers and builders is commendable, these large structures are sometimes doomed to failure for two main reasons.
First, bee hotels normally have plant materials in them. These materials rot and decay. So, over time, the hotel becomes dirty, with moulds, musts and mildews moving in to undertake decomposition. They are also more likely to harbour diseases. No mother bee will willingly select an old, mouldy hotel as a birthplace for her offspring.
Second, the basic purpose of the hotel is not to provide holiday accommodation but to provide a nursery for young bees. Predators are always on the lookout for young bees to eat so a large hotel creates a honeypot effect attracting predators and so defeating the basic purpose of the exercise.
Several small, widely-dispersed, bee hotels changed annually are therefore better than one large, central palace that has been in the one place over a number of seasons. Bees also need food, so a bee hotel needs to be surrounded by wildflowers to provide nectar and pollen.
Bee hotels are intended to conserve just a handful of species of two kinds of cavity-breeding, wild solitary bees and pollinators: leafcutter bees and mason bees. They need tube-like cavities ideally with varying diameters in the range 2-10mm. Last year’s, dry Hogweed stems that may be found in abundance along roadside verges are a ready, free source. Otherwise short offcuts of a bamboo cane, or similar, are ideal.
The bee hotel in the image above has been newly installed as evidenced by its very fresh appearance and the fact that no tube is occupied. When bees use tubes, they block them off. Leafcutter bees use tiny, circular bits of leaf; mason bees use mud.
A quick inspection of a bee hotel to see how many holes are closed tells immediately whether it is being used or not. If it is, that’s great. If it isn’t, it needs to be moved to a better location or completely overhauled.
Newly constructed bee hotels should be fixed to trees 1.52.0m off the ground, should be protected from the weather and should face south or east. And, they should be small; no more than 30cm tall.