Wild bees are the wild cousins of the domesticated honey bee and play a vital role in pollinating many different plant species. Germany is home to around 600 species of wild bee, some of which nest in small holes like you might find inside rocks, wood or hollow stems of plants. However, the wild bees’ habitat is steadily shrinking, with their nesting sites and food sources growing ever scarcer both in urban areas and in the countryside. With roughly half of all species considered vulnerable or critically endangered, wild bees are given special protection under the Federal Nature Conservation Act (Bundesnaturschutzgesetz).
It’s quick and easy to make your own bug hotels to give wild bees and other insects more places to nest in today’s (urban) landscape and give you the chance to observe insect life right outside your own front door. The bug hotels you can buy in the shops are often inadequate, contain materials that wild bees can’t use and may present an environmental threat if parasites, bacteria or viruses get into the brood cells. If a hotel is damaged, the bees might not even use it in the first place. Bees prefer a sunny spot. A bug hotel can be covered with some fine wire mesh to protect it from birds.
A female wild bee makes a row of several chambers inside each reed for her offspring. Inside each chamber she places an egg and a supply of food—nectar and pollen—for her young. Depending on her species, she seals the individual chambers using sand, clay, plant matter, saliva or even tree sap. The young bees that hatch the following year will then have to break free from their chambers one after the other.
Very small species of wild bee rarely travel more than 200 meters away from their nest, so it’s a good idea to make sure the bees have some flowers close by. Many wild bee species have developed a specialized preference for the pollen of a particular plant to feed their offspring (known as “oligolecty”). You should therefore try and offer them as wide a range of native species as possible in order to have something to suit every taste. You can find more information about what food to serve wild bees by following the link below (balcony and patio/flower meadow). Incidentally, it’s not just wild bees that’ll move into your bug hotels—they’ll also provide a home for other insects that are equally worthy of protection.
Click on the following link to download a complete set of instructions.
Did you know? Instead of constructing a bug hotel using reeds, you can put holes in blocks of clay or bits of log to give insects somewhere to nest. Just make sure that you drill smooth holes with a diameter of between 2 and 9 millimeters into any hardwood at right angles to the direction of growth (i.e. laterally). The best material to use is wood that has already been in storage for a few years and is well dried out.