December 3, 2024

VIDEO: Bug Hotel: How to Make a Home for Beneficial Insects


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Beneficial insects are an essential part of any successful vegetable or fruit garden. They help us by eating pests and by pollinating crops but to to make sure there are lots of them in the garden in time for spring, they need some protection during the colder months.

Bug hotels are easy to make and are great projects for children to get involved in. They give beneficial insects a safe, cosy home to shelter in over winter, so they’ll be right on hand to help fight pests and pollinate crops when the weather warms up next year.

In this short video we demonstrate how to build a bug hotel that will make beneficial insects want to check in and stay in your garden forever!

If you’ve noticed any pests or beneficial insects in your garden lately please report them to us at http://bigbughunt.com

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and many more…

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28 thoughts on “VIDEO: Bug Hotel: How to Make a Home for Beneficial Insects

  1. This video is very well-meant, but propagates a few of the practices DISCOURAGED by entomologists. The small construct shown being built in the video is actually fairly ideal (though a bit shallow), but please ignore the suggestions and examples shown of BIG bug hotels for multiple specie. Don't try to make large multi-material bug hotels for several reasons — first, much too often, this puts predators right next to their prey. It also encourages too large a population of one naturally solitary specie, which is encouraging the spread of disease. So instead, make several smaller, single-material bug hotels such as the one actually being built in the video, each placed in different locations, and each using a specific material most favored by a particular insect. Note, too, that the hollow stems should really be 7-8 inches long rather than 4-6 inches, since in some species the female/male ratio of larvae is negatively affected by NOT being able to place some of them deeper into the stems.

  2. I had old bamboo so I sawed them into about 8" pieces but so many have a split going lengthwise. I was thinking of using a little wood putty to close the gap. Also, I didn't realize that the knots formed a wall so I'm planning to sell through them to form a larger tube. I don't mind the extra work but should I start over with newer bamboo; better for the bees? Thank you.

  3. Useful advice. With common sense the roof can be nailed properly. You didn't say what should be the depth. I am going to make that as about 100 mm. Many thanks.

  4. my sturdy wooden hi-fi speakers are going to be reincarnated into a quieter, peaceful afterlife as
    a luxury residence for bees! ….and so is my rickety bedside cabinet !

  5. Another good tip that has been making the rounds lately is to avoid picking up leaf litter until quite a bit later into the season, as all sorts of things overwinter in piles of leaf litter.

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