hi and welcome back to garden ninja today's
video guide is going to show you how to build a bug hotel
the right way i'm going to show you how to do that using all sorts of bits and
bobs that you've probably already got lying around your garden so
come on let's get cracking!
So the first project I'm going to show you is how to make a bug hotel out of
two pallets you're also going to need some old
bricks and a wood saw.
Now you may have seen a lot of bug hotels are made of pallets
and that's for good reason they're readily available most people will have
one lurking in the back of their garage and they're really easy to work with
secondly they allow airflow which also means that
bugs and insects can travel through your bug hotel.
We also need to make sure that the bug hotel has a roof that's bigger than the
rest of the hotel and that's to protect it from rain they
see here that i've got this tray of weird and wonderful plants
this is a sedum roof tile that had left over from a project.
Sedum is incredibly tough and if you've not seen my guide on how to make a green
roof go and check that out to find out more.
I'm gonna sit this in the top of the bug hotel which will attract even more
wildlife add some protection just make it look a
bit nicer as it blends into the surroundings!
Pallets have a central support bar and whilst you can take off all of these
lats using a pallet breaker it's a bit of a
pain in the backside so what i'm going to do today is cut
down on the right hand side of that central support bar which will
leave him with this long rectangular box that's intact
and then it will leave him with half excuse you barry
that doesn't have a support but i'll show you how you can still use that
later on with some clever work with a few bricks.
So I've finished cutting the two pallets and you should end up with two pieces
that are the same like these one of them is the base
and then one of them is going to end up is the roof
now they are slightly bigger than the other off cuts
pieces like this can sit inside and by using a brick under each
of the loose ends you can then keep it structurally sound.
Now it doesn't need to take the weight of 10
rugby players as long as it's sturdy and stands
upright on its own it'll be fine because we're not putting
huge amounts in this but by doing it this way you don't need
to start messing around with deck screws or getting out your trigonometry sets to
work out your angles so it's a really easy way to build a bug
hotel and don't forget the bugs don't care if it's not pristine
they're more concerned with the materials
that we're going to stuff inside it!
It's now time to get all of these in position
so another really important thing with your bug hotel is location location
location you don't want to put it anywhere or
it's going to get smashed by a football when the kids get it from school
or too close to the front of the border and i see that all the time with certain
design guides online that people build these gorgeous bug
hotels and stick them right next to the lawn
and it's just too close to human proximity in my experience
now I'm lucky in that I'm here in the wildlife garden and I'm going to situate
mine over there near the evergreen shrub and
as these wildflowers and grasses grow throughout the season
it will be well protected but I can still keep my eye on it!
So you want to stack your bug hotel up layer by layer
and you can use bricks for those off cuts that I mentioned before
by putting them under the loose ends it will then balance them out
so there really is no need for any waste with this project
so finished building up the bug hotel I popped this sedum
roof tile on top which I had going spare from a green roof project.
However you could use sempervivum sedum succulents
you could use a piece of turf or even wildflower seeds
that's sewn into the top of your bug hotel. So things that would usually go
into your compost bin like herbaceous perennial clippings
can all get stuffed in and that will just add a really diverse mix of organic
materials to help your bug hotel
now what's great about this bug hotel is you've got all the different layers with
different materials we've got the herbaceous perennials near
the top as we move down we've got all those
tree prunings and bits of leaves we've then got the more inert layer
which are the bricks with the air holes and the broken terracotta pots
I've also added in a bit of green matter just to get things moving.
You may have noticed that I've not used any garden canes in my bug hotel
and you'll often see them used in all the different design guides online
but the reason is twofold the first is that once you've cut them up you have to
make sure that they're really smooth because they can actually
harm bees and insects that try and nest within them the second reason is for a
bug hotel you're not really going to be
encouraging many solitary bees i tend to treat them as a separate hotel in their
own right and the reason for that is that they're
quite exacting solitary bees need either a south or south easterly
facing hotel they also need a different variety of
nesting sizes and quite often those garden canes are just too
big for them so let me show you that now
I can't forget about solitude bees and usually
in shop bug hotels you'll see all those canes that have been cut off
and put in and packed in different patterns but usually they're far too big
because solitary bees will nest in small holes provided that the
diameter is between six millimeters and ten millimeters so more
often than not those shop bought bug hotels and ones made at home
the size of the cane is just too big for them so that they're useless
so what i'm going to show you today is if you look behind me we're going to
build a solitary hotel in a wooden fence post which is super
easy low fuss and pretty much cost-free other than the
drill bit that you might need so solitary bees will use these holes to
lay their eggs which then pupate and then they overwinter and then in the
spring they will hatch out and fly out and
another issue with the solitude b hotels is that most people realize that you
have to maintain them so it's not a case of just banging them into a bug hotel
forgetting about them every spring these will need to be
cleaned out so once they've hatched out and emerged
i'll get a pipe cleaner in there and just pull out all the debris and
then they're good for the next year
now I've got quite a lot of these panels that I can add these solitary bee hotels
to but even if you've only got a couple by
adding five or six and making sure that they're 10
centimeters in depth and around 6 to 10 mil in circumference you're
providing a natural habitat for solitary bees and all you need to do is next
spring once they've hatched you then clean them up with the pipe
cleaner and job done!
So there we have it how to build bug hotels the right way
and you'll have noticed that both these solutions are using things you might
already have lying around you don't need to go and spend a small
fortune on really fancy book hotels and equipment
most of the things that you already have lying around the garden are really
useful another perfect materials for bugs and
insects if you've liked this video why not
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garden design hints tips and hacks and wildlife guides
to help you make your garden look awesome I've been garden ninja I'm off
for a brew happy gardening!