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Insect Hotel
- hjyfyhrdytrfu 5y ago
- lom 5y agoIf you don’t want to build one of these on your own you can also buy them in many places, at least in germany.
- tobylane 5y agoI have one from a British garden centre. It’s in sight but I haven’t looked to see who’s in it.
- zabzonk 5y agoWhat about "roach motels" - they check in, but they don't check out (if you are lucky). Due to sticky instectecide. Believe me you don't want to have roaches, no matter what your feelings are for lovely insects (I like butterflies, bees, dragonflies, ladybirds and such).
- tomcam 5y ago> Solitary bees and wasps Makes me imagine middle-aged mail bees in their insect hotel late at night, watching too much bee porn and drinking too much naturally fermented blackberry wine, wondering where their lives have gone
- the_af 5y agoHaha. I didn't even know solitary bees species existed. Live and learn.
- malort 5y agoWishing he had chosen a path in life like most of his drone buddies who settled down, mated with a queen, had their genitals explode, and then died immediately after?
- tomcam 5y agoYou make it sound like a bad thing
- throwanem 5y agoNever seen a male wasp drunk. Females, sure; I have a fig tree tall enough that some of the fruits are hard to reach, so they stay on the branches while they ferment, and that tree became very popular with the foragers from a nearby bald-faced yellowjacket nest late last summer - at that point the work of the year and the lives of the wasps are likewise nearly done, so it seems only fair they should enjoy themselves a bit in retirement. One of them had a bit too much last year and ended up sleeping it off on my porch window! It was interesting to watch her sleep - you wouldn't think it off the top of your head, but you can tell what stage of sleep they're in by their breathing, just as with sleeping humans. https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/img_8240.jpg https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/img_8240.jpg
- bragr 5y agoI'm really struck by how beautiful these end up being. Using common materials to create all those small spaces seems like a very cheap and accessible project. Are there any major design considerations? Presumably what sized spaces the local insect population prefers?
- throwanem 5y agoSize and nesting habit, yep. For example, mud daubers and allies need straight holes in wood, and so do carpenter bees, but they have different size preferences. Social wasps need different sorts of shelters entirely for their nests, and honeybees a different sort again that we conventionally call "hive boxes".
- didsomeonesay 5y agoI was taught two things when building a miniature version with the kid in a forest education center: - after drilling holes, make sure to smooth the edges; insect wings could get stuck or damaged on unnaturally rough edges that the wood drilling bits leave. - best to place the insect hotel with the openings facing west
- _Microft 5y ago> with the openings facing west This also depends on the local climate and wind direction. Here it is recommended that the holes face south. That helps against rain which is commonly coming from west as this is the prevailing wind direction here.
- FabHK 5y agoApparently it is also recommended that the holes be of different sizes, rather than uniform.
- adg001 5y agoSome design ideas for those of us willing to build our own insect hotels https://learninglandscapesdesign.com/insect-hotels/ https://learninglandscapesdesign.com/insect-hotels/
- cpach 5y agoWe have some of those in our little town. They are built like miniatures of other buildings, like the brewery, the water tower, a manor, etc. Quite cute :) https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/sormland/miniatyrer-av-byggnader-i-gnesta-ska-locka-insekter https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/sormland/miniatyrer-av-byg...
- robga 5y agoLocal apian friends prefer the AirBnB.
- MisterTea 5y agoSo these are AirBeenBee's then?
- alexcroox 5y agoWe have these all over the UK, can't say I've ever spotted anything crawling in or around them though.
- Cockbrand 5y agoOver here in Europe, kids commonly build these in Kindergarten. They're a great tool to make kids aware of insects and their role in nature.
- Quarrelsome 5y agoye, there's a little walkway just down from where I live that has a bunch of these made by local schoolkids.
- jeofken 5y agoIn what country?
- nicoburns 5y agoPresumably a German speaking one
- DocTomoe 5y agoI was under the impression that "Kindergarten" was moved into the English language, much like "Hamburger", "Schadenfreude" and "Rucksack".
- nicoburns 5y agoIt has, but only in American English (presumably due to German immigrants to the US). In the UK we call kids' first school "Primary School". It's definitely possible that a European from another country would translate "kids-first-school" into Kindergarten if they learnt American English, but a brit if I read "kindergarten" I think "either German or US school" and I would expect people from other countries to leave the term untranslated if they were referring to their local schools.
- apexalpha 5y agoPrimary school is 5 - 11, no? That would be Elementary or Grundschule. Kindergarten is for 4 or 5 year olds, like pre-school.
- croo 5y agoI drove a lot of 3-4 cm deep different sized holes in a piece of firewood and put it to a dry and bee accessible place next to our house. Every hole got filled by next spring.
- Findecanor 5y agoI've been told the holes should be at least 5 cm deep, preferably 10-15 cm (4-6 inches). I've heard of insect hotels being raided by insect-feeding birds when the holes hadn't been deep enough.
- croo 5y agoWell I didn't do any scientific research about the project but it definitely works and the bees/hornets like it. We also have a lots of birds (20 or so different species) and no one attacked it so far. I guess I can try deeper holes on my next iteration :) it will depend on the firewood.
- thinkingemote 5y agoIve one, and it was used almost immediately after I got it. However this article, nor any of the shop pages, or anywhere that I can find about them does it state: How long it lasts, How to maintain it, what to do after insects fill up the holes, etc. Seems to me that it was in operation for one year, and then got fill up with insect nesting material, and now is inoperable. Not very sustainable if that's the case. Does anyone know how long they last and what to do after a year? Logically, as far as I know, wasps and bees do not go back to their nest after they are done with them. The nests dont grow and grow. They move on after queens are produced. (Bee hives are man made structures which are maintained by bee keepers) Bird nesting boxes tend to be cleaned out by birds, or re-used I think. At least some can be cleaned by humans if necessary.
- fxleach 5y agoHere is a great resource for the upkeep: https://www.foxleas.com/make-a-bee-hotel.asp https://www.foxleas.com/make-a-bee-hotel.asp
- thinkingemote 5y agoMany thanks!!! I now have a great Easter holiday garden task. I might even try editing the wikipedia article with maintenance tips.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoThey usually sell them in Hofer(Aldi) and Lidl here for very very cheap, so you can just throw the old one away (it's basically a bunch of wood and some wire around them and more wood, so you can just dump it somewhere, and the rain and the elements will do their job), and buy a new one.
- poisonborz 5y agoThese are very popular in Europe, with city municipalities and institutions deploying them en masse on their grounds... but I've never seen any insects around them. One would think they'd be swarming with life? Can anyone confirm these are useful, and not just greenwashing "look, we care" signposts?
- thinkingemote 5y agothey work, but I don't know whether they keep on working past a year or two.
- johannes1234321 5y agoThey can work longer, but one should keep an eye on them and sometimes clean from parasites etc.
- fleddr 5y agoThey most definitely work, insects need very little and will almost immediately move in, granted it is positioned correctly (outside wind, not in full sun). People just have the wrong expectation. It's not some entertainment device where you permanently see a 100 insects flying in front of it. Most insects stuff it with food and/or their larvae.
- apexalpha 5y agoI have a small one in my garden and it's filled up with all kinds of insects. Obviously if you place on in a parking lot with no other habitats around insects won't find them, but they do work wonderfully.
- fxleach 5y agoA friendly reminder that these insect hotels need annual maintenance, or else you will eventually have a parasite haven. https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/horrors-of-mass-produced-bee-houses/ https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/horrors-of-mass-produced...
- pvorb 5y agoThanks! I had no idea about these issues.
- greggsy 5y agoI had no idea - very eye opening. The solution was very pragmatic too: “After all the bees finish emerging (summer), throw out the house. Or, better, burn it and record a video of the fire.”
- nomel 5y agoIt really makes you wonder how they survive in the wild without us!
- IntrepidWorm 5y agoIts hard to tell if thats sarcasm. :)
- eru 5y agoWell, some insects are domesticated. We don't expect cows to survive in the wild, either. Feral dogs or feral horses tend accumulate some differences from their domesticated brethren relatively quickly.
- Fomite 5y agoWhen we moved into our new place, we put our fence in a few feet from the actual back of our house, and planted a strip of native, pollinator-friendly plants in a little micromeadow. Cannot recommend it enough.
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- quercusa 5y agoThere's a significant downside to congregating (e.g.) solitary bees - they can get cleaned out by predators. We had every tube in a 30-tube hotel opened and emptied over a weekend by some kind of parasitoid wasp. Now we leave old flower stalks up over the winter.
- duxup 5y agoI have some “wild” area on my property. Tree falls… I leave it. Bugs need homes. There’s plenty of landscaped area too, but a neighboring pond, marshy area allowed me to let my land next to it stay wild too. I get foxes, rabbits, bald and golden eagles, and owls come buy to clean out the rabbits from time to time. Huge Sandhill cranes, ducks, turtles, massive snapping turtles. It’s not a massive area but it attracts so much life.
- gorgoiler 5y agoI had a heap of old wet logs that I was going to cover up, season, and then idk do something with them. I moved one and disturbed three hibernating admiral butterflies. The log went back on the pile and it’s been left there for years. The thought of disturbing their life like that fills me with remorse and gradually more and more of my garden is turning into carefully nurtured fallow ground. You have to stay on top of the weeds. Some plants just muscle in and fuck it up for everyone else. I’m looking at you, comfrey. Pulling their satanic tap roots out one by one gives me great pleasure. They are the devil’s carrot. Cowslips and oxslips are good sharers of ground. They seem to push out the asshole plants but let others grow around them. You can collect the heads in late summer and harvest the seed to vernalise and grow new slips. I managed to convert 15000 seeds — yes, I counted them — into ten new plants. Maybe I’ll do better next year. My garden blends from suburban stuck up prissyness, through wild flowers, then brush, and into weedy chaos. The opulence of the former hopefully balanced by the diversity of the latter. Too many brown widows though. They seem to really like the home I’ve made. Oh well. I guess you can’t have citron butterflies without also risking a nasty bite. The best insect hotel is a pile of firewood that is too open for butterfly hibernation. It is covered with slates and will get burned on cool summer nights once the residents have moved out. The ash goes into the scrub patch as fertiliser. I should burn the comfrey and feed it back to the survivors of my purge, as a macabre justice.
- tharkun__ 5y agoThis! All of this so much! Coincidentally I read about insect hotels recently as well and also on the topic of cleaning them and also that many commercial ones are just completely inadequate (wrong type of holes and materials and such). I figured out that our yard actually already provides perfect insect hotels. Those leaves I didn't get to shred and put on the compost pile before the weather was too wet? Perfect for certain types of insects. The birds think so too as they rummage through it every spring. What I will try this year is taking some of the firewood and drilling the right size holes in it. The good thing? I can just burn it in summer in the pizza oven and not worry about cleaning up. I'll just take some new logs and do the same thing. And all the kindling, which is just branches that fall from the trees all the time anyway get collected in a big pile. Perfect insect hotel. By the time I start using it in summer, they'll have moved out. I also compost in place for most flowering plants. E.g. my Hostas. I do take the flower stems out so they don't stick up and "look bad" but I just break them once of twice and leave them in place. Doubly so for the leaves, those of course just stay in place. Perfect compost for the new Hostas next year without having to actually spread compost everywhere. And it probably doubles as an insect hotel as well.
- m3kw9 5y agoDidn’t see any reviews on yelp though.
- animex 5y agoA trypophobian nightmare.
- psiops 5y agoI found a dove's nest that fell out of tree (thankfully empty). It's an awesome structure that I gave a place in my garden, placed upside down. I think it will serve as a good home to many bugs. I tought my children from the start that bugs are good, useful and cool creatures. They love 'm all.
- scns 5y agoWhen solitary bees go to sleep they bite in a leaf and hang down. If danger approaches they open they jaws and fly away.
- auselen 5y agoAren’t these a heaven for spiders?