Skip to main content

Bug Hotels: Hospitality for Gardens

The first time I ever saw a bug hotel was in the yard of my nephew's house.  His wife, Kay, is one of the best urban homesteaders I've ever met.

Her bug hotel was about the size of a Victorian doll house, had a moss roof and was work of art. I was enchanted.

A bug house (or hotel) provides winter habitat for beneficial insects who, in turn, swarm awake in the spring, lay eggs and sweep your organic garden clear of aphids and mites. That's the theory anyway.

"I first learned about bug/pollinator houses when taking a hike at a preserve, " Kay said. "They had a huge bug house on display.  It was really like a functional piece of artwork."

Although she always wanted to create one, it wasn't until some neighbors started complaining about carpenter bees and discussing sprays to kill them that she decided to get to work. Other neighbors, who were advocates for pollinators and native plants and had made their farm a pollinator haven, served as inspiration.

With some research online and a check for materials on hand, Kay started to create. She used pallets and scrap lumber to build a structure with different levels where she could stuff in various materials. Those she found with the help of Craigslist and neighbors. The layers of her bug house used broken pottery, bamboo, grasses and old bricks stuffed in the crevices. There is room to keep adding things.

To create the moss roof, she filled wooden tray-like structures with dirt and gradually added different mosses.

Mason bee home
A mason bee snug.

Mason bees have taken up residence in the bamboo sections and voles and a chipmunk live underneath, Kay said. Carolina wrens lurk inside, although Kay isn't sure if they are nesting or believe they've found the Golden Arches of bird fast food.

"I think a more appropriate name would be a 'wildlife' house and I'm happy for this."

The only thing she said she would do differently is place it in an area with more sun.  She's considering building another closer to her vegetable garden.

My friend Tom Coman in Oklahoma is in his first year of hosting a bug hotel. He was inspired to get a bug hotel by watching a Growing a Greener World video online.  He bought two pollinator hotels at Costco in the early spring. One he installed at his daughter's house and the second in his own backyard.

"It has yet to attract guests," he said. "In the past, (pollinator) wasps have used a power strip for their eggs."

Tom reports that his backyard also hosts pest-eating black widow spiders. "They are neighbors, not friends you want to have an interpersonal relationship with," he added.

One of the biggest impediments to a bug hotel at Fink Farms is Farmer Karen's dislike of bees. This is unfortunate, given that the United Nations estimated in 2016 that nearly 40% of insect pollinators are in danger of becoming extinct. That could have drastic consequences on our food supplies and on plant and animal life.

I haven't yet persuaded her that Mason bees, common residents of bug hotels, are different. Unlike other types of bees, Mason bees are solitary. Every female is a queen, who seeks pollen and cares for her own eggs rather than relying on an army of bees in a hive to run a bee nursery. Mason bees are amazing pollinators, not aggressive and if pushed to sting have only a mild venom.

Depending on your climate, a mason bee house does require some maintenance.

One of the fun aspects of bug hotels is ease and creativity that goes into setting them up. David Domoney, a British horticulturist with a TV show, has created a wonderful guide to do-it-yourself bug hotels.

His ideas range from beautiful hanging bug houses to habitats as a simple as coiled corrugated cardboard inside a plastic beverage bottle with the bottom cut off to a bunch of pine cones gathered up in chicken wire and hung from a tree to attract lady bugs. His guide also lists a variety of materials that can be put in sections of a bug hotel to attract different species.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Know Your Soil For Best Garden Results

I've always taken soil for granted. It was there. You put seeds into it. You put water on it. Plants grow and produce flowers, fruit or vegetables. Gayle Weinstein, author of Xeriscape Handbook; A How-To Guide to Natural, Resource-Wise Gardening , takes a different view: “Soil . . . acts as a highway between life and death, land and atmosphere, plants and animals.” It stores water, air and nutrients and makes it possible for an exchange of elements and chemical reactions to occur, she adds. She describes soil as being animal, vegetable and mineral combined. Here are six tests Gayle recommends for getting to know your soil. Grab a shovel and a quart jar. Dig up two cups of dry soil two-to-six inches deep from the areas you want to test. Gather a glass of water, dish washing detergent and paper towels. A soil pH kit, a meter or litmus paper will be needed for the final test.
Post a Comment
Read more

Order in the Garden

The first year that Fink Farm was in operation, we devoured Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening .  A 10-foot by 12-foot plot isn't much.  We pegged off one-foot measures on two adjoining sides, and rolled some pebbled pavers into position to give us places to stand amongst our soon to be thriving garden. But then things started spinning out of alignment. For starters, it became clear that running string across the dirt in one-foot increments was going to create one nasty arrangement for digging on any scale at all. All I could envision was a broken ankle from hopping over all that string.
Post a Comment
Read more

Water saving ollas

When you're saving water, the first step is to get the water where it's needed in the most direct way possible. No sprinkler heads rising like swans in a ballet to spew water 18-inches above the ground, splashing sidewalks and gutters. No sprinklers nodding back and forth sending sprays of water as tall as a child. Nope, it's irrigation dripping directly at the base of a stem or water bubbling at dirt-level. You can't get much more direct than an olla (pronounced oy-ya ). In the irrigation world, an olla is a clay pot, usually with a round bottom and a longish thin neck that is planted in the dirt next to plants that need water.  The dirt is mounded around the pot so that only the end of the neck shows. Water is poured into the opening to fill the buried pot. The clay absorbs water that in turn is absorbed by the dry earth surrounding it.  The plant gets a slow steady supply of water. Because the pot is buried, there's little exposure to the air and evaporatio...
Post a Comment
Read more