Insect hotel - use, material, construction instructions and valuable tips

Build your own insect hotel - That's how it works

Bees, bumblebees and wasps, butterflies and dragonflies are threatened in their existence. In addition to food plants, they lack of shelter. We can help with so-called insect hotels, where we provide these nesting and winter places.

• We offer bees, wasps and bumblebees a nesting possibility with tubes from 2.5 mm to 1 cm.
• Beetles and earwigs love dry nests of wood wool and straw. But these should be away from the apiary so that the earwigs do not eat the bee larvae.
• Insect hotels can be built from different materials. It is important that they are weatherproof, do not get wet inside, and that the holes are the right size for the animals.
• In addition to purchased materials such as bamboo, you can also collect their insect hotel utensils in the garden, using stems, hardwood and tree bark.
• An insect house is only useful if you also provide for an insect garden and offer suitable breeding plants for larvae and adults.

contents

• Build your own insect hotel - That's how it works
• Do not buy useless finished products
• Different needs
• Food and shelter
• Nesting aids for different species
• avoid errors
• Insects and garden benefit
• Instructions for the construction of an insect hotel
• When will we put the hotel up?
• With what do we fill the shelter?
• Stem Hotel
• Model nature
• Nesting site for sand bees

Do not buy useless finished products

But beware: Insect hotels are a hype, and every garden center offers them today. The majority of these finished products is unsuitable as a habitat for the insects: sometimes the holes in the wood are too small, sometimes too short drilled, or there are materials in them, with which the animals can do nothing.

A properly built insect hotel provides valuable shelter for a variety of insects. (Image: tektur / fotolia.com)

Different needs

The ecological niches of wild bees and bumblebees are very different. Sand bees dig their nests in sand, some bumblebees burrow under the ground. Others use the tunnels in deadwood, which eat beetles, some nest in tree holes or in woodpiles. Still others inhabit rock crevices or cracks. Then they populate the hollow stalks of plants.

Today, sand surfaces disappear under the shopping center, in the place of old sheds are detached houses and rotten trees removed the city administration, orchards are lost, dry stone walls are removed.

Food and shelter

An insect hotel in the manicured English lawn is as sensible as a flat with an empty fridge and without the possibility to get something to eat. Create a wildflower meadow for insect shelter, plant a natural hedge with hazel, hawthorn, sage, meadowsweet, blackthorn and cornelian.

Nesting aids for different species

If we know the needs of each species, we can easily create nesting aids. For example, we tie reeds together or fill the holes of a hollow brick with stalks and hang everything up at a sun spot. The course should be dry, south facing and calm.

The drilled holes must not be too big, otherwise they will not be accepted by the insects. (Image: alexandersw / fotolia.com)

avoid errors

Before you start, pay attention, the most common mistakes when building an insect hotel to avoid:

• For example, if the stalks are in the front of stems, the animals can not crawl through.
• Ytong stones act like a sponge and absorb water. The insects can not tolerate the wet.
• Insects do not accept stems that are flat, fraying or splintering.
• For wild bees, pine cones, straw or bark have no meaning. These pull instead Ohrenkneifer.
• If you want to give both groups a home, separate the nests with cones, straw or bark from the shelters for wild bees. Otherwise, the earwigs will eat the nectar stores empty.
• Clay-inhabiting bees dig their holes themselves. Therefore, the clay must not be too hard. Avoid insect hotels with pre-drilled holes in the clay.
• The end of stems and tubes should be closed. If both sides are open, no matter if with stems, bamboos or reeds, the insects do not accept them.
• Do not drill larger than 1 cm in diameter. There are no such oversize insects here that would accept the holes.
• Do not drill parallel to the wood fibers. The fibers can block the way for the animals.
• Choose softwood instead of hardwood.
• Gypsum concrete is unsuitable as a building material. He picks up water and that kills the insects.

Insects and garden benefit

An insect hotel supports:

• Wild bees: These pollinate fruits and vegetables
• Wild bees: Like the bees, they pollinate garden plants.
• Ladybug: The and their larvae eat aphids.
• lacewings: Their larvae eat aphids.
• Ground beetles: They eat nudibranchs and potato beetles.

Lacewings, earwigs and their larvae are also important food for toads, lizards and birds - so natural enemies of the snails, which grind the salad.

Instructions for the construction of an insect hotel

An insect shelter is best in the partial shade with the openings to the south and free access - not in the scrub. Full shade is unsuitable as the larvae need the sun's heat to develop. It must not be exposed to the northwest, because otherwise moisture gets into the dwellings. Mushrooms can spread and the animals die.

The hiding place is best raised, then predators can not reach it too easily. In addition, it is usually too shady on the ground. The best is in the vicinity of an insect pasture present, so flowers or plants infected with aphids. Also a water spot on site is necessary. It is better not to illuminate the place around the insect hotel in the dark. A wireframe keeps birds out.

When will we put the hotel up?

Insect hotels we can set up all year, because they are not only for breeding, but also as winter quarters. But it is better to offer them from spring to autumn, because the insects are not active in winter. Place the dwelling in a fixed place and leave it there.

Danger: Do not come up with the idea of ​​"doing something good" to the insects and warming up the shelter in winter. As the temperature rises, the larvae hatch and this upsets the natural rhythm.

When building an insect house, the most diverse materials are used. (Image: alexandersw / fotolia.com)

With what do we fill the shelter?

Different insects have different needs, so we use various in the different areas of the house Materials for the insect hotel.

This includes:

• reed
• bamboos. Bamboo has solid partitions in the stalk, so we each get a sealed tube.
• Pflanzenstängel (abundant in winter and spring in dead shrubs).
• Nisthölzer
• excelsior
• bricks
• leaves
• snail shells
• Branches, branches (for example elderberry, dogrose, cherry, willow)
• bark

Reeds, bamboo and stems are easy to process. The plant stems should have a diameter of 2.5 mm to 1 cm and be finished at the end. The marrow should be removed with a stick or screwdriver.

We press the approximately 10 cm long stems into a tin can, from which they do not fall out and fix them.

A matching tin box ensures that the stems can not fall out. (Image: christiane65 / fotolia.com)

For nesting wood we use hardwood such as oak or beech and drill holes from 2.5 mm to 1 cm inside. This corresponds to the corridors that visit wild bees in deadwood. We drill from the long side, from which also the beetles eat into it.

We never pierce the wood completely, a passage of about 10 cm is optimal, so we need thick pieces of wood. Optimal are holes from above diagonally - then no water runs into it. The holes must not overlap.

Depending on the size of the holes, we attract different bees:

• The horned Mason bee preferably 8 mm, the red 7 mm, the steel blue only 4-5 mm.
• The scissors bees take already 3 mm vorlieb.
• hylaeus and wasps sometimes with 2.5 mm, but some species need 5 mm.

Suitable are ash, alder, beech and oak, well deposited and drilled transversely to the fiber direction, so that no cracks occur.

bricks

Insect hotels are particularly suitable for Strandfalzziegel. These have small holes of the right size for wild bees.

snail shells

Rare wild bees breed in snail shells. But we do not take the large houses of vineyard or even agate snails, but the medium-sized of ribbon or Schnerrelschnecken.

straw

Straw is suitable for earwigs and beetles. We place a straw box separately and at a distance from the bee house. Earwigs eat the larvae of the bees, and their shelter should therefore have a safety distance. Earworm hides should be near aphids, not near wild hives. You can fill old pottery pots with straw and hang them down in the garden.

bamboo house

For a bamboo bee nesting aid, we cut bamboo cane into pieces eight centimeters long and remove split ends and cracks from the front opening. The length of the tube should be eight centimeters, are in the piece knot, we drill this. We glue the pieces to the back with a tile adhesive. To do this, we fill a two-centimeter thick layer of the adhesive in the wooden house and push the bamboo pieces into it.

For a simple house, we take four pieces of wood each eight centimeters long, the width is measured by the number of bamboo tubes. They should all fit in, but leave no gaps. We measure the back accordingly. Since the walls are not used for nesting, they just need to be so stable that the house withstands wind and weather. Particle boards are completely sufficient.

Schilfröhrchen and bamboo pieces serve the insects as nesting aid. (Image: EDEN / fotolia.com)

Stem Hotel

In autumn we can cut a number of stems of half a meter in length, for example of elderberry, blackberry, butterfly lilac or dogrose, and dry over the winter. In March we pick them up in the garden and fix them diagonally to trees, fences or walls. By the way: If you leave the stems of their perennials, you will achieve the same effect.

Model nature

Insects in nature feed into the upright stems of pithy plants. Therefore, you should keep your stems upright instead of horizontally, as unfortunately in most commercially available insect hotels.

The general rule: If you keep your garden "clinically clean", ie tear out wild carrots and stinging nettles, where caterpillars find their food, remove wildflowers as "weeds", and bring deadwood to the recycling center, an insect shelter will not use anything.

Create a drywall, frame your beds with old branches and pieces of bark, leave a pile of stone, keep a wild corner where you will not mow or rake. Then you already have most of what distinguishes an insect hotel. Build this in addition to the structure of an insect-friendly garden - and not instead of this.

Nesting site for sand bees

For sand bees you need a sandy area. For this, you carry the earth down to about 2 x 2 m, about 50 cm deep, and then fill in humus, gravel and sand. The sand content should be 2/3. The ground should be loose and stable at the same time. If it is too dense, the bees can not drill aisles. If it is too loose, the corridors collapse. You can prevent the sand surface from overgrowing by framing the site with boards. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)