Wild bees not only fill our environment with life, colour and beauty, as pollinators of crops and wildflowers these fascinating little creatures are among the most important animals on earth.
You can help bees at home by providing them with food and somewhere to nest. You can provide bees with food by growing plants rich in pollen and nectar, and you can provide a nesting site by putting up a bee hotel.
While Honeybees and Bumblebees live in a colony, most of the bee species that live in the Channel Islands don’t, which is why they are called ‘solitary’ bees. Many species nest underground but some species nest above the ground in old plant stems and cavities in trees that have been made by burrowing beetle larvae.
Putting up a bee hotel is a simple yet effective way to help these bees. It’s also great fun and offers a window into their remarkable lives.
Making Your Bee Hotel
Designed to mimic the natural nesting habitat of mason and leafcutter bees, a bee hotel is simply a waterproof container filled with hollow tubes. The container can be a box made from wood, or a length of plastic drainpipe.
Wooden box
To make a simple wooden box you will need a plank of untreated wood 120mm wide x 1250mm long x 15mm (or greater) thick.
- Cut the plank of wood in to five 250mm lengths.
- Using a drill and wood screws, piece the wood together to make an open-fronted box with a long back panel. Drill a hole in the long back panel so that it can be fixed to a wall, post or fence.
- Sand off any rough edges.
Pipe
You will need a section of plastic pipe with a diameter of approximately 100mm, an end cap, and a fixing bracket.
- Cut a 250mm length of pipe.
- Plug the back of the pipe with an end cap.
- Attach the fixing bracket ready for installation.
Tubes
You can make the tubes yourself by cutting lengths of bamboo, or you can buy cardboard tubes designed for bees from specialist suppliers such as masonbees.co.uk.
To make your own tubes, cut lengths of bamboo between 170mm to 260mm long. If you can, cut just beyond a ‘node’ so that your tubes are sealed at the back, but make sure there are no nodes anywhere else along the tube as the bees are not able to get through them.
To attract Mason and Leafcutter bees, the entrance holes of the tubes should have diameters between 6mm and 10mm.
If you add a few tubes with holes between 2mm and 6mm you may also attract other species.
Homemade nesting tubes made from bamboo (above) and cardboard nesting tubes purchased from specialist suppliers (below). Photograph © Jon Rault.Installing Your Bee Hotel
- Divide your tubes up in to 3 small bundles of approximately 10 tubes using strong elastic bands.
- Place the bundles of tubes in to the wooden box or plastic pipe so that they are slightly shorter than the container. This stops them getting wet!
- Find a sunny (south to southeast facing is best), unshaded spot on a wall, fence or wooden post approximately 4-7ft above the ground with a clear flight path for bees entering and leaving.
- Tilt your bee hotel slightly downward to help keep nesting tubes dry when it rains.
- Securely fix your bee hotel so that it doesn’t sway in the wind.
- Patiently wait for bees to move in.
A bee hotel made from drainpipe filled with tubes made from cardboard and bamboo. Note: this hotel was purchased as a kit from masonbees.co.uk. Photograph © Jon Rault.Who’s Inside
The bees most likely to move in to your bee hotel include Mason bees and Leafcutter bees. Red Mason bees Osmia bicornis ssp. cornigera are the species most likely to move in. They are called Mason bees because they line their nest cells with mud, so to make them feel even more at home be sure to provide them with a supply of damp mud somewhere near the hotel. They are active relatively early in the year and can be seen as early as March.
Leafcutter bees Megachile spp. fly a bit later in the year, usually appearing in June. Leafcutters get their name from the females’ habit of using their powerful jaws to cut sections of leaves and petals which they use to line their nest cells.
A Female Red Mason Bee Osmia bicornis ssp cornigera takes a well earned rest after building her nest in a bee hotel. Note the completed nest sealed with mud in the centre of the image. Photograph © Jon RaultWhats Going On Inside
Having found your bee hotel, a female bee will choose a tube to make her nest in. Inside her chosen tube she will build individual ’cells’ lined with mud or leaves. She will make a little cake of pollen and nectar inside each cell before laying an egg and sealing it up. Once the egg hatches the bee larvae will eat the pollen and nectar and then spin a cocoon. Inside the cocoon the bee larvae will transform in to an adult. They remain inside the nest over the winter before chewing their way out as adult bees the following spring or summer to repeat the cycle.
The inside of a Red Mason Bee nest in late April showing the mud-lined cells containing pollen and nectar cakes (yellow) with eggs laid on top (opaque oval shapes). Photograph © Jon Rault.If you want to see the action for yourself, specialist suppliers such as masonbees.co.uk and Nurturing Nature sell bee hotels with viewing windows so you can watch what’s happening inside the nest.
Red Mason Bees visiting a Bee Unit available from masonbees.co.uk. Photograph © Jon Rault.
Pulling out the drawers of the Bee Unit lets you to see whats going on inside the nest. Photograph © Jon Rault.
A Solitary Bee Observation Nest Box available from Nurturing Nature. The window covers can be removed so that you can observe the nests. Photograph © Jon Rault.
