Insect Hotels Caution

A Word of Caution About Insect Hotels

There is something rather appealing about the little wooden insect hotels that have become increasingly common in garden centres and online. They look as though they are doing something positive for nature — a small contribution to biodiversity, hanging from a fence or tucked into a sunny corner of the garden.

But, as with many well-intentioned environmental products, it is worth looking a little more closely at what we are actually providing.

This is particularly relevant to bees.

The phrase wild honeybee can itself be misleading. In Britain, genuinely wild colonies of the European honeybee are now extremely uncommon. There may still be colonies occupying natural cavities — perhaps in a hollow tree, an old building or some other sheltered space — but their existence is difficult to quantify. Where such colonies are known to be present, beekeepers are understandably often reluctant to advertise their locations.

Most of the bees we see visiting our gardens are not honeybees at all. Britain has hundreds of species of wild bee, many of them solitary bees. These are the insects that some of the commercially produced “bee hotels” are intended to attract.

And this is where a little caution is needed.

Five potential problems with the mass-produced bee hotel

1. Roughly drilled tunnels

A nesting tunnel needs to be reasonably smooth and free from splinters and sharp fibres. Poorly finished holes can potentially damage delicate wings and bodies as bees enter and leave.

It is an unfortunate irony that something sold as a bee home can sometimes be poorly constructed for the very insects it is supposed to accommodate.

2. Treated or unsuitable timber

Not all wood is equally appropriate. Strong-smelling resins, paints, preservatives, glues and other treatments may make a product less attractive to insects and, depending on the material, could potentially present risks.

Untreated, naturally durable timber is generally a more sensible choice than a cheaply manufactured product covered in finishes whose purpose is principally to make it last longer or look attractive to us.

3. Damp and mould

Perhaps the simplest test is to imagine being asked to live inside it through a British winter.

If water can enter through the top, the wood may remain damp for long periods. Poor ventilation and persistent moisture can encourage mould and deterioration. For developing bee larvae, the conditions inside a nest are obviously important.

A proper roof, sensible orientation and protection from driving rain matter considerably more than decorative appearance.

4. Nesting tubes that are too short

Different solitary bee species have different nesting requirements, so there is no single “correct” tunnel length.

However, very shallow holes can provide limited nesting opportunities and may leave developing brood more exposed to predators and parasites. Simply drilling a few holes into a block of wood does not necessarily reproduce the conditions a particular bee species requires.

This is one of the problems with the idea of a universal “bee hotel”: bees are not one species with one set of requirements.

5. The decorative hotel

Perhaps the greatest danger is that we design these things for ourselves rather than for insects.

Pine cones, bark, straw and other natural-looking materials can make an insect hotel look wonderfully rustic. But attractive does not necessarily mean useful. Different insects have very different nesting habits, and some of the materials commonly included in commercial products may provide little meaningful habitat for the species they are supposedly intended to support.

In some circumstances, badly designed mixed-material hotels may even create convenient hiding places for predators and parasites.

Perhaps less is more

There is a broader point here.

We sometimes assume that helping wildlife means buying something labelled wildlife friendly. It doesn’t necessarily.

For many bees, the most valuable habitat may simply be a garden with flowering plants, undisturbed soil, bare patches where ground-nesting species can burrow, hollow stems left standing and somewhere sheltered from excessive disturbance.

And if you do want to provide nesting accommodation, a simple, well-made nesting block designed for the species likely to use it may be considerably better than an elaborate £20 or £30 “insect hotel”.

There is also something rather satisfying about making one yourself. A piece of untreated hardwood, properly drilled and finished, with a good roof and positioned in a suitable sunny, sheltered location, may do more for solitary bees than a colourful collection of pine cones and drilled timber assembled primarily for the garden centre shelf.

The important thing is not whether an insect hotel looks natural.

It is whether it actually works for the insects.

Perhaps the best approach is therefore to treat these products with a little healthy scepticism. Before buying one, look beyond the label, examine how it has been constructed, consider the materials and ask a simple question:

If I were a bee, would I actually want to live here?

Sometimes the most environmentally friendly answer may be to leave the money in your pocket — and let the garden do the work instead.

Philip Ferri