[HN Gopher] Insect Hotel
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Insect Hotel
Author : keiferski
Score : 111 points
Date : 2022-04-12 10:44 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| duxup wrote:
| I have some "wild" area on my property. Tree falls... I leave it.
| Bugs need homes.
|
| There's plenty of landscaped area too, but a neighboring pond,
| marshy area allowed me to let my land next to it stay wild too.
|
| I get foxes, rabbits, bald and golden eagles, and owls come buy
| to clean out the rabbits from time to time. Huge Sandhill cranes,
| ducks, turtles, massive snapping turtles.
|
| It's not a massive area but it attracts so much life.
| tijuco2 wrote:
| So basically you leave in paradise :)
| duxup wrote:
| Teeny tiny slice in a suburb ;)
| hjyfyhrdytrfu wrote:
| alexcroox wrote:
| We have these all over the UK, can't say I've ever spotted
| anything crawling in or around them though.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| Over here in Europe, kids commonly build these in Kindergarten.
| They're a great tool to make kids aware of insects and their role
| in nature.
| jeofken wrote:
| In what country?
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| ye, there's a little walkway just down from where I live that
| has a bunch of these made by local schoolkids.
| adg001 wrote:
| Some design ideas for those of us willing to build our own insect
| hotels
|
| https://learninglandscapesdesign.com/insect-hotels/
| bragr wrote:
| I'm really struck by how beautiful these end up being. Using
| common materials to create all those small spaces seems like a
| very cheap and accessible project. Are there any major design
| considerations? Presumably what sized spaces the local insect
| population prefers?
| didsomeonesay wrote:
| I was taught two things when building a miniature version with
| the kid in a forest education center:
|
| - after drilling holes, make sure to smooth the edges; insect
| wings could get stuck or damaged on unnaturally rough edges
| that the wood drilling bits leave. - best to place the insect
| hotel with the openings facing west
| _Microft wrote:
| > with the openings facing west
|
| This also depends on the local climate and wind direction.
| Here it is recommended that the holes face south. That helps
| against rain which is commonly coming from west as this is
| the prevailing wind direction here.
| throwanem wrote:
| Size and nesting habit, yep. For example, mud daubers and
| allies need straight holes in wood, and so do carpenter bees,
| but they have different size preferences. Social wasps need
| different sorts of shelters entirely for their nests, and
| honeybees a different sort again that we conventionally call
| "hive boxes".
| lom wrote:
| If you don't want to build one of these on your own you can also
| buy them in many places, at least in germany.
| tobylane wrote:
| I have one from a British garden centre. It's in sight but I
| haven't looked to see who's in it.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Ive one, and it was used almost immediately after I got it.
| However this article, nor any of the shop pages, or anywhere that
| I can find about them does it state: How long it lasts, How to
| maintain it, what to do after insects fill up the holes, etc.
|
| Seems to me that it was in operation for one year, and then got
| fill up with insect nesting material, and now is inoperable. Not
| very sustainable if that's the case.
|
| Does anyone know how long they last and what to do after a year?
| Logically, as far as I know, wasps and bees do not go back to
| their nest after they are done with them. The nests dont grow and
| grow. They move on after queens are produced. (Bee hives are man
| made structures which are maintained by bee keepers)
|
| Bird nesting boxes tend to be cleaned out by birds, or re-used I
| think. At least some can be cleaned by humans if necessary.
| fxleach wrote:
| Here is a great resource for the upkeep:
| https://www.foxleas.com/make-a-bee-hotel.asp
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Many thanks!!! I now have a great Easter holiday garden task.
| I might even try editing the wikipedia article with
| maintenance tips.
| croo wrote:
| I drove a lot of 3-4 cm deep different sized holes in a piece of
| firewood and put it to a dry and bee accessible place next to our
| house. Every hole got filled by next spring.
| Findecanor wrote:
| I've been told the holes should be at least 5 cm deep,
| preferably 10-15 cm (4-6 inches).
|
| I've heard of insect hotels being raided by insect-feeding
| birds when the holes hadn't been deep enough.
| croo wrote:
| Well I didn't do any scientific research about the project
| but it definitely works and the bees/hornets like it. We also
| have a lots of birds (20 or so different species) and no one
| attacked it so far. I guess I can try deeper holes on my next
| iteration :) it will depend on the firewood.
| zabzonk wrote:
| What about "roach motels" - they check in, but they don't check
| out (if you are lucky). Due to sticky instectecide. Believe me
| you don't want to have roaches, no matter what your feelings are
| for lovely insects (I like butterflies, bees, dragonflies,
| ladybirds and such).
| zabzonk wrote:
| OK I can't spell insectecide.
| gojomo wrote:
| IIUC you have a 2hr grace period to edit or delete an HN
| comment. So your aside here could be replaced by a correction
| instead.
| cpach wrote:
| We have some of those in our little town.
|
| They are built like miniatures of other buildings, like the
| brewery, the water tower, a manor, etc. Quite cute :)
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/sormland/miniatyrer-av-byg...
| poisonborz wrote:
| These are very popular in Europe, with city municipalities and
| institutions deploying them en masse on their grounds... but I've
| never seen any insects around them. One would think they'd be
| swarming with life? Can anyone confirm these are useful, and not
| just greenwashing "look, we care" signposts?
| fleddr wrote:
| They most definitely work, insects need very little and will
| almost immediately move in, granted it is positioned correctly
| (outside wind, not in full sun).
|
| People just have the wrong expectation. It's not some
| entertainment device where you permanently see a 100 insects
| flying in front of it. Most insects stuff it with food and/or
| their larvae.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| they work, but I don't know whether they keep on working past a
| year or two.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| They can work longer, but one should keep an eye on them and
| sometimes clean from parasites etc.
| fxleach wrote:
| A friendly reminder that these insect hotels need annual
| maintenance, or else you will eventually have a parasite haven.
|
| https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/horrors-of-mass-produced...
| Fomite wrote:
| When we moved into our new place, we put our fence in a few
| feet from the actual back of our house, and planted a strip of
| native, pollinator-friendly plants in a little micromeadow.
|
| Cannot recommend it enough.
| fleddr wrote:
| I get the point that if you buy a device with the singular goal
| to maximize a bee population, the author has many valid points.
|
| But there's counter points. The first one being is that most of
| these products, including the one the author is showing in the
| opening of the article, are not bee hotels. They are insect
| hotels.
|
| Parasitic insects are insects. And there's nothing inherently
| wrong with them. My tubes are filled with solitary bees, wasps
| stuffing their tube with tiny spiders, bumblebees, a whole
| bunch of diversity. And yes, there's competition for tubes and
| parasitic behavior.
|
| Which is all perfectly normal and natural. I photograph insects
| as a hobby. In the wild, parasitic behavior is the norm. Most
| caterpillars are dead before they know it, as they're easy prey
| for parasitic wasps to inject their eggs into. Many insects are
| covered in mites.
|
| What can I say? Insects have a short and brutal life. Most
| don't make it to adulthood and that is kind of how it is
| supposed to be.
|
| This is not to say that many of the tips in the article are
| bad, they are still good. But not just for bees, they are good
| tips in general.
|
| The one tip I'd stress the most is the cheap nests being too
| shallow. In moderate climates where there's an actual winter,
| don't be afraid to go 30cm deep.
|
| The other thing I'd add is to think of their "habitat" outside
| the hotel. Digg in a bucket of water and you'll have a mini
| pond where many will come to drink. Plants the proper flowers,
| etc.
| pvorb wrote:
| Thanks! I had no idea about these issues.
| greggsy wrote:
| I had no idea - very eye opening. The solution was very
| pragmatic too:
|
| "After all the bees finish emerging (summer), throw out the
| house. Or, better, burn it and record a video of the fire."
| nomel wrote:
| It really makes you wonder how they survive in the wild
| without us!
| robga wrote:
| Local apian friends prefer the AirBnB.
| MisterTea wrote:
| So these are AirBeenBee's then?
| tomcam wrote:
| > Solitary bees and wasps
|
| Makes me imagine middle-aged mail bees in their insect hotel late
| at night, watching too much bee porn and drinking too much
| naturally fermented blackberry wine, wondering where their lives
| have gone
| the_af wrote:
| Haha.
|
| I didn't even know solitary bees species existed. Live and
| learn.
| fleddr wrote:
| It's cool that you're open to learning. Most people don't
| know that pretty much every bee species is solitary. Social
| bees are exceptional.
| progre wrote:
| You knew about bumblebees right? Those are solitary bees
| (most of them, there are colonizing bumblebees as well)
| throwanem wrote:
| Some are in between! Some carpenter bees will share the
| same brood tunnel, cooperatively maintaining and enlarging
| it while individual bees build their own side tunnels for
| their babies.
| the_af wrote:
| Yes, but for some reason I don't think of bumblebees as
| bees. Irrational, I know!
| malort wrote:
| Wishing he had chosen a path in life like most of his drone
| buddies who settled down, mated with a queen, had their
| genitals explode, and then died immediately after?
| tomcam wrote:
| You make it sound like a bad thing
| throwanem wrote:
| Never seen a male wasp drunk. Females, sure; I have a fig tree
| tall enough that some of the fruits are hard to reach, so they
| stay on the branches while they ferment, and that tree became
| _very_ popular with the foragers from a nearby bald-faced
| yellowjacket nest late last summer - at that point the work of
| the year and the lives of the wasps are likewise nearly done,
| so it seems only fair they should enjoy themselves a bit in
| retirement.
|
| One of them had a bit too much last year and ended up sleeping
| it off on my porch window! It was interesting to watch her
| sleep - you wouldn't think it off the top of your head, but you
| can tell what stage of sleep they're in by their breathing,
| just as with sleeping humans. https://aaron-m.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/12/img_8240.jpg
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I had a heap of old wet logs that I was going to cover up,
| season, and then idk do something with them.
|
| I moved one and disturbed three hibernating admiral butterflies.
| The log went back on the pile and it's been left there for years.
| The thought of disturbing their life like that fills me with
| remorse and gradually more and more of my garden is turning into
| carefully nurtured fallow ground.
|
| You have to stay on top of the weeds. Some plants just muscle in
| and fuck it up for everyone else. I'm looking at you, comfrey.
| Pulling their satanic tap roots out one by one gives me great
| pleasure. They are the devil's carrot.
|
| Cowslips and oxslips are good sharers of ground. They seem to
| push out the asshole plants but let others grow around them. You
| can collect the heads in late summer and harvest the seed to
| vernalise and grow new slips. I managed to convert 15000 seeds --
| yes, I counted them -- into ten new plants. Maybe I'll do better
| next year.
|
| My garden blends from suburban stuck up prissyness, through wild
| flowers, then brush, and into weedy chaos. The opulence of the
| former hopefully balanced by the diversity of the latter.
|
| Too many brown widows though. They seem to really like the home
| I've made. Oh well. I guess you can't have citron butterflies
| without also risking a nasty bite.
|
| The best insect hotel is a pile of firewood that is too open for
| butterfly hibernation. It is covered with slates and will get
| burned on cool summer nights once the residents have moved out.
| The ash goes into the scrub patch as fertiliser. I should burn
| the comfrey and feed it back to the survivors of my purge, as a
| macabre justice.
| quercusa wrote:
| There's a significant downside to congregating (e.g.) solitary
| bees - they can get cleaned out by predators. We had every tube
| in a 30-tube hotel opened and emptied over a weekend by some kind
| of parasitoid wasp.
|
| Now we leave old flower stalks up over the winter.
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