How to Make Native Bee Hotels (updated, first published in 2016)
Although known widely as native bee hotels, these structures are not 5-star rooms for native bees to sleep in, but are artificial nesting habitats made specifically for cavity nesting native bees. They are simple structures to make and place in backyards, urban green spaces, community gardens, courtyards etc.
The increasing prevalence of widespread land clearing, spreading urban development, and the trend towards overly manicured gardens have significantly reduced the availability of natural nesting materials that these bees rely on. By providing an artificial nest, you can support the local endemic bee populations. This not only aids in the conservation of these important species but also enhances biodiversity in our gardens and contributes to the overall health of our ecosystems and pollination services.
Since 2012, I've made a variety of different Native Bee Hotels for my garden, all with great success and most needing a 'no vacancies' sign at the end of the nesting season.
Making hotels is a fun and easy weekend activity that is especially fun with your kids or grandchildren. Since 2012 I have visited multiple schools and hosted dozens of workshops in which I have helped kids and participants make in excess of 2000 of the below example that all went home to individual gardens all around the south of Western Australia and even in Horsham Victoria.
Not only are they simple & cheap to make, they also provide many hours of entertainment watching the busy females darting in & out busily nesting.
Now, don't expect any honey from these hotels! The native bees that use these are purely pollinators only. And the small efforts we can make by providing hotels along with a variety of flowers for their food and avoiding pesticides ultimately fosters a thriving environment for these vital pollinators. This is caring for backyard biodiversity with the extra bonus of increased pollination and harvests of homegrown fruit and veges!
Constructing a home for cavity nesting solitary bees
Approximately 30% of the native bee species in your garden and surrounding ecosystems are cavity nesting solitary bees. In a healthy intact ecosystem, the females will seek out holes like old wood borer holes or hollow stemmed plants like reeds to place food provisions and lay their eggs inside. The eggs will hatch inside the cavity and develop into adult bees before emerging. The majority of species that use my bee hotels are inside the cavities for 9-11 months before emerging as adults. This next generation will continue the lifecycle of breeding and nesting.
Firstly, you need a container or shell that will securely hold your material. This needs to be around 20cm deep and ideally should have a backing to keep it more protected from wind, rain and predators.
Your containers can be repurposed materials like recycled tins, old T.V's, microwaves or computer monitors (front glass removed), 2 litre yogurt containers, pvc pipe, reclaimed timber to build a frame, drawers from old wooden chest of drawers, clay drainage pipes etc.
Ensure you choose materials that have not been treated with chemicals. Composite materials such as hardboard, chipboard or particleboard tend to disintegrate in the rain and will be need to be kept undercover, out in the weather.
Then simply fill your hotel with ‘rooms’ -
ready-made cavities materials include: bamboo, elephant grass canes, rolled cardboard, waxed paper straws, agapanthus stems, xanthorrea stems, kangaroo flower stems
soft pithy centred stem cuttings from your garden: spent raspberry canes, grapevine cuttings, lantana, elderberry stems, old dried globe artichoke flower stems and fennel flower stems,
A variety of solitary bee species will use these cavities as nests to lay their eggs and many bees and different species can use the hotel at the same time - but they will not share a cavity. You may also have solitary wasps utilise the hotel too, this is great as they are important predators to the 'pests' in your garden. Embrace diversity!
Native bees come in all different sizes and each prefer a hole that’s “just right”. Having a large variety of hole diameters will ensure you’re tailoring it to the needs of all the different species who'll use it.
Drill holes of varying diameters between 2mm and 10mm. The open ends of these holes should face outwards, and must be smooth, and free of splinters. Don't drill all the way through the wood as the bees tend to avoid holes open front to back, therefore your wood should be around 20cm in depth. You can purchase longer auger drill bits to drill deeper holes around 10-15cm in depth.
Not all bees like ready made cavities. Reed Bees, for example prefer to dig their own tunnels into soft pithy stemmed plants, which is why we include materials like spent raspberry canes and dried grape vine cuttings.
HOTEL PLACEMENT – my personal observations of what makes the bees happy
I’ve found the bees prefer their hotels to be in a morning sunny spot facing between North to North East and my most popular hotels that the bees love all sit under the cover of the veranda – not out in the garden in the elements
The hotel needs to be placed somewhere protected from strong winds, rain & hot summer sun. Ideally, shade from mid-morning onwards in summer.
Ideally placed between 0.5 – 2 metres off the ground to protect from ants
Don’t have branches overhanging the hotel, make the entrance easy to see from your garden
You can hang them in the fork of a tree, under an eave, patio or veranda, but make sure it doesn’t swing excessively in the wind which makes it hard for the females to enter. You can also fix them against a wall or fence
Ensure you have lots of bee food in your garden in close proximity to your hotel (see my other blog on how to create gardens that attract and care for native bees)
SIZE OF HOTEL
Although the above example of a hanging hotel in my garden is the most popular each year with the bees, it is too large. If we think about replicating what nature would provide these bees, it would be nesting substrates here and there, not in mass amounts like this. In peak nesting, this large hotel is buzzing very loudly and therefore it attracts their natural predators - Gasteruptiid wasps that parasitise their nests. In saying this, every year dozens of bees still hatch out successfully and have done so for 9 years.
The hotel below is more ideal in size.
Constructing a home for ground nesting solitary bees
Around 70% of our native bee species nest in the ground, like the beloved blue banded bees. You can still replicate nesting habitats for them and these are especially helpful in cities and large housing estates where a lot of the suitable habitat has been cleared for development and is now covered in roads, concrete, lawns, gardens, paving, thick mulch etc.
Choose a container that will securely hold a cob mixture, this one below is made from tins, but you can use anything recycled, eg. PVC pipes, besser blocks. These hotels should be placed close to ground level and protected from harsh summer sun.
Cob Mix: is one part clay to three parts sand mixed together and fill up your container, leaving an inch lip at the top. This gap at the top will create protection from the rain once placed in the garden.
Allow this to partly dry and then use a biro or round stick to push holes into the clay mix. These will be approx. 1cm in diameter and 10cm deep. Space the holes about 5cm apart. Do not overcrowd your hotel, as many bees like to make side tunnels in their nesting holes.
I have an abundance of ground nesting bee species in my garden and my personal observations are that these hotels are not used, as they have plenty of space and ground to choose from on my property.
A more effective alternative to making these hotels is to ensure you have some bare patches of dirt in your backyard, that isn't covered in thick mulch, weeds, lawn etc, nor will it be walked over or inundated with water.
Happy Hotel Making. I'd love to see your creations too - please feel free to share them on my facebook page.
And make sure your follow my facebook and instagram pages to keep up to date with my native bee gardening tips, native bee finds in my patch and bee hotel designs.
Green Tree Blessings x
