Bamboo Bee Hotel - SLIDEBLAST.COM
Give bees a home
Bamboo Bee Hotel
Give bees a home by making your own Bee Hotel with our simple step-by-step guide
What does a Bee Hotel look like? Bee Hotels come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from a basic log with holes drilled into it, to a custom-made wooden structure.
What does a Bee Hotel do?
the tube from front to back – usually between eight and 11 eggs per tube.
Will the bees in the Bee Hotels produce honey?
No. The Bee Hotels are designed to attract solitary bees, a species of bee that is also one of the most Female bees use the hotel to raise the next generation of bees. First, she chooses an unoccupied effective pollinators of crops and flowers. Unlike tube in the hotel and collects a ball of pollen about honey bees, they nest alone rather than in colonies. the size of a dried pea, onto which she lays an egg. What’s more, because they have no honey to protect She then seals it with a mud wall and starts the next they are docile, so you don’t have to worry about pollen ball, lays an egg, and so on until she has filled getting stung around them.
How to make a Bamboo Bee Hotel This is a great parent-and-child project. You will need:
• A fine-tooth saw • A length of bamboo garden cane, with openings around 6-8mm in diameter • Several cable ties or thick elastic bands • A short length of wire
Note: Don’t be tempted to use plastic straws. Bees have difficulty getting into them, as the insides are too smooth. Condensation quickly builds up inside the straws and bees get stuck on the plastic.
1. Saw the cane into pieces, cutting just above the nodes on each bamboo – this creates a tube where one end is naturally sealed by the node. 2. Cut these tubes into lengths of approximately 15cm. Don’t worry if the end of the bamboo isn’t a perfect hole, the bees will naturally clear out the excess bamboo. 3. Bundle 15 or 20 pieces with all the open ends together using the cable ties or elastic bands. 4. Make sure the bamboo is held together rigidly. Fasten to a suitable object with the wire, following the instructions overleaf.
Give bees a home
As part of Sainsbury’s Bee Happy programme, we are installing Bee Hotels like this one (left) on our stores.
Where do I put my Bee Hotel? It’s important to mount your hotel so that the openings point east, because solitary bees love early morning sun! l Mount the Bee Hotel against a landscape feature like a fence, shed, wall or something like a stake in front of a hedge. l The Bee Hotel needs to be fastened so it can’t move or rotate, so no hanging on a piece of string.(The bees are very sensitive to nest orientation once they start using it.) l Mount your Bee Hotel so that the bamboo lies horizontally, not at an angle. l The flight path into the hotel should be unobstructed, allowing the bees easy access. l The height of the Bee Hotel doesn’t matter, but ensure you can check it safely. l
What happens next?
interesting to try and guess where they got it. l Blue Mason bees use chewed-up leaf mastic that starts off green in colour, but quickly fades to a brown leaf shade. l Leafcutter bees use discs of leaf cut from nearby plants or from petals (usually pink for some reason!). The leaf discs tend to keep their green colour.
The life of the bee in your hotel Nothing much happens in your Bee Hotel until the spring. When tree blossom appears, bees become active. The first potential residents of the hotel are the Red Mason bees in mid-April through to June. The Blue Mason bees take over pollinating duties more generally until the end of July, and Leafcutter bees take up residence until the end of summer.
Maintaining your Bee Hotel
A little maintenance is required from time to time. Solitary bees are active for six months during When necessary, replace the bamboo tubes and spring and summer. Over that time, you will see a make sure that the hotel always remains fixed in progression of different species (there are 250 types the correct orientation. If you have been adventurof solitary bee) using your Bee Hotel. The different ous and made a wooden structure, give it a coat of colour and texture of the end cap will give clues as to waterproof paint without insecticides. Staff at your which species have moved in: local DIY store should be able to give advice on the l Red Mason bees use mud to close the end. It’s right paint to use.
Further information on bees
For more information on your hotel residents, visit sainsburys.co.uk/bees or bwars.com, the webpage of the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society. You can live well for less than you thought at Sainsbury’s. Based on price perception data, June 2013. © J Sainsbury plc 2013
Bamboo Bee Hotel
Give bees a home by making your own Bee Hotel with our simple step-by-step guide
What does a Bee Hotel look like? Bee Hotels come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from a basic log with holes drilled into it, to a custom-made wooden structure.
What does a Bee Hotel do?
the tube from front to back – usually between eight and 11 eggs per tube.
Will the bees in the Bee Hotels produce honey?
No. The Bee Hotels are designed to attract solitary bees, a species of bee that is also one of the most Female bees use the hotel to raise the next generation of bees. First, she chooses an unoccupied effective pollinators of crops and flowers. Unlike tube in the hotel and collects a ball of pollen about honey bees, they nest alone rather than in colonies. the size of a dried pea, onto which she lays an egg. What’s more, because they have no honey to protect She then seals it with a mud wall and starts the next they are docile, so you don’t have to worry about pollen ball, lays an egg, and so on until she has filled getting stung around them.
How to make a Bamboo Bee Hotel This is a great parent-and-child project. You will need:
• A fine-tooth saw • A length of bamboo garden cane, with openings around 6-8mm in diameter • Several cable ties or thick elastic bands • A short length of wire
Note: Don’t be tempted to use plastic straws. Bees have difficulty getting into them, as the insides are too smooth. Condensation quickly builds up inside the straws and bees get stuck on the plastic.
1. Saw the cane into pieces, cutting just above the nodes on each bamboo – this creates a tube where one end is naturally sealed by the node. 2. Cut these tubes into lengths of approximately 15cm. Don’t worry if the end of the bamboo isn’t a perfect hole, the bees will naturally clear out the excess bamboo. 3. Bundle 15 or 20 pieces with all the open ends together using the cable ties or elastic bands. 4. Make sure the bamboo is held together rigidly. Fasten to a suitable object with the wire, following the instructions overleaf.
Give bees a home
As part of Sainsbury’s Bee Happy programme, we are installing Bee Hotels like this one (left) on our stores.
Where do I put my Bee Hotel? It’s important to mount your hotel so that the openings point east, because solitary bees love early morning sun! l Mount the Bee Hotel against a landscape feature like a fence, shed, wall or something like a stake in front of a hedge. l The Bee Hotel needs to be fastened so it can’t move or rotate, so no hanging on a piece of string.(The bees are very sensitive to nest orientation once they start using it.) l Mount your Bee Hotel so that the bamboo lies horizontally, not at an angle. l The flight path into the hotel should be unobstructed, allowing the bees easy access. l The height of the Bee Hotel doesn’t matter, but ensure you can check it safely. l
What happens next?
interesting to try and guess where they got it. l Blue Mason bees use chewed-up leaf mastic that starts off green in colour, but quickly fades to a brown leaf shade. l Leafcutter bees use discs of leaf cut from nearby plants or from petals (usually pink for some reason!). The leaf discs tend to keep their green colour.
The life of the bee in your hotel Nothing much happens in your Bee Hotel until the spring. When tree blossom appears, bees become active. The first potential residents of the hotel are the Red Mason bees in mid-April through to June. The Blue Mason bees take over pollinating duties more generally until the end of July, and Leafcutter bees take up residence until the end of summer.
Maintaining your Bee Hotel
A little maintenance is required from time to time. Solitary bees are active for six months during When necessary, replace the bamboo tubes and spring and summer. Over that time, you will see a make sure that the hotel always remains fixed in progression of different species (there are 250 types the correct orientation. If you have been adventurof solitary bee) using your Bee Hotel. The different ous and made a wooden structure, give it a coat of colour and texture of the end cap will give clues as to waterproof paint without insecticides. Staff at your which species have moved in: local DIY store should be able to give advice on the l Red Mason bees use mud to close the end. It’s right paint to use.
Further information on bees
For more information on your hotel residents, visit sainsburys.co.uk/bees or bwars.com, the webpage of the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society. You can live well for less than you thought at Sainsbury’s. Based on price perception data, June 2013. © J Sainsbury plc 2013
