[HN Gopher] Insect Hotel ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-13 23:00 UTC)