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How does a bee hotel work is one of the most frequently asked questions we have received since launching our bee hotel. So, we felt it would be beneficial to share here on our blog alongside some other important questions we have answered!

As you may know our precious pollinators are facing a crisis having lost much of their natural habitat due to urban development, change of land use and intensive farming.

Bee hotels are a great way to help our solitary bees, by providing much-needed shelter in our gardens - unlike bumblebees and honey bees, who live in colonies. According to Friends of the Earth's guide a variety of bee species could take up residence in your bee hotel, they are most likely to be: red mason bees, blue mason bees, leaf cutter bees and white faced bees.

The 3 most commonly asked questions about bee hotels;

1) Where do I place my bee hotel?

The bee hotel should be positioned in a sunny area, south or south-east facing and hung securely from a wall or fence using a nail or screw. It is important not to let the bee hotel swing or sway in the wind as bees are terrible at landing! Heat from the sun will help warm bees in the morning and this will also help prevent the components from going mouldy. Locate your bee hotel at least one metre above ground level, ensuring no vegetation is blocking the tunnels.

bee-friendly flowers underneath your hotel to give them a nearby food source. We suggest planting a variety of flowers and plants which will provide pollen and nectar throughout the year.

Be patient: Bee's may not take up residence in your first year. You'll know when they arrive because the entrance of the tunnels will be blocked off with mud or leaves! By late July your bee hotel may be full of eggs and food.

2) When to put a bee hotel out?

Most designs are temporary so in the winter months, between October and February we recommend carefully moving your bee hotel into a garden shed or outer building. Somewhere dry and cool for protection from the elements. The rain is their adversary and they need to be protected from the persistent heavy rain in the winter - rather than the cold.

Place the hotel outside again in March ready for Spring. This is when your new guests will want to 'check-into' your hotel for the summer. You will know when they start to nest as they will return with pollen attached to their hind legs and materials like mud and leaves to create walls within the tube.

3) How do I clean my bee hotel?

Maintenance of your bee hotel is crucial. Please do not install your bee hotel and forget about it! It is essential for the health of the bees who reside there, but it will also extend the life of the bee hotel itself. In a natural environment the tunnels would not be so close together therefore pests and mould may spread more easily.

Keep an eye out for any guests who are not welcome like the fly whose larvae eat the stored pollen and bee larvae. Cacoxenus indigator

At the end of the summer identify any cells that are still walled where no young bees have emerged. These need to be removed and cleaned with a pipe-cleaner, a small brush or by blowing compressed air inside.

Every two years the tunnels will need to be replaced with fresh new ones. This will help prevent the build up of fungus, mould and parasites and give your hotel a little spruce!

During the winter months, let your garden grow wild.

Whilst your hotel is away for the winter you can help bees and other pollinators by leaving your garden 'messy'. By dedicating a spot that is un-trimmed and layered with leaves this can become a habitat for bees to survive and reproduce. It's a super easy way to make a difference and create a buzz in your garden.

Use your bee hotel as an awesome conversation starter to talk about the importance of bees with your friends. If you would like to gift a bee-loving friend then why not treat them to a ready-made bee hotel? For every product sold we will also plant one tree in our efforts to re-build habitats that have been lost.

We hope this has helped you! If you have any further questions please reach out as we'd love to hear from you.

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Bee hotels are a great way to help our solitary bees, by providing much-needed shelter in our gardens - unlike bumblebees and honey bees, who live in colonies. According to Friends of the Earth's guide a variety of bee species could take up residence in your bee hotel, they are most likely to be: red mason bees, blue mason bees, leaf cutter bees and white faced bees.

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SERIES 30 | Episode 16

Josh is in Perth's Kings Park where the native plants attract native bees. Kit Prendergast is a native bee researcher. She says that when people talk about bees, they usually mean European honeybees and forget the 2000 bee species that are native to Australia.

Native bees are really important for Australia's native flowers because they have co-evolved together over millions of years, so are perfectly suited to pollinating local plants.

The key difference is native bees are mainly solitary rather than living in social colonies.

Each female can reproduce; they collect nectar and pollen, build a nest, lay an egg on it, close up the nest and then leave.

Some do live in groups of 3-10 and provide some degree of care to their offspring.

There are 11 species of 'sugarbag' bees in Australia that live in colonies like honeybees, with a queen and her daughters and workers.

Kit has been installing bee hotels in gardens and parks as part of her PhD. In one there are four holes occupied by one of the Megachile species of bees that cap their nests with resin that is collected from trees.

The nests may have a number of cells, with up to 12 individual eggs, each with its own stash of nectar and pollen. The whole nest is then sealed it off with resin to protect it from the weather and parasitic wasps.

Bee hotels provide artificial nesting sites for bees in areas where there may not be enough natural borer holes in trees. To make a hotel, simply drill a few different-sized holes in a block of wood and install it in a tree at about eye level. The holes should be between 3mm and 10mm wide - any larger and the bees won't use it.

Bees love plants in the pea family (Fabaceae) such as stinkwood ( Jacksonia sternbergiana) as well as species of Daviesia, Gompholobium and Hardenbergia. The stinkwood is often visited by the Megachile bees that are likely to use your bee hotel, and not by honeybees, so planting it will make your garden more welcoming.

Other plant species that native bees like includes daisies, such as Swan River daisy ( Brachyscome iberidifolia cv.), fanflowers ( Scaevola sp.) and members of the myrtle family: Kunzea sp., Callistemon sp., Melaleuca sp., and Eucalypts.

Kit is researching the plants that native bees visit, how they're responding to urbanisation and the importance of remnant plant patches.

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Josh is in Perth's Kings Park where the native plants attract native bees. Kit Prendergast is a native bee researcher. She says that when people talk about bees, they usually mean European honeybees and forget the 2000 bee species that are native to Australia.

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Creating a Bee Hotel  |  Construction With Costa

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Often when people think of bees in the UK, it is the social honeybee and bumblebees that spring to mind. But bees are a very diverse group, with lots of different lifestyles and nesting habits. Around 275 bee species live in Britain, including just one honeybee and 27 bumblebee species. The vast majority are solitary bees.

The Museum's bee expert and Curator of Hymenoptera Joseph Monks says, 'Many people do not realise honeybees and bumblebees only form 10% of the UK's total bee fauna. Solitary bees form an integral part of pollination networks and therefore we must all do our bit to protect and conserve these vital species.'

Building a bee hotel is one of the ways you can help.

What is a bee hotel?

A bee hotel is a place where certain types of bees can nest. Unlike actual hotels, they are not used for short overnight or week-long stays. Instead, they provide long-term accommodation where a bee lives from the time it is laid as an egg, until it is ready to emerge as a fully grown adult. With that in mind, bee hotels are sometimes called solitary bee houses, bee condos or bee nest boxes.

Bee hotels are designed to provide suitable nesting opportunities for aerial, cavity nesting species that would usually seek out old beetle holes in wood, other small, pre-existing tunnels or hollow plant stems. This design provides the latter.

1. Use a cane to measure from the bottom of the pot to one centimetre below the rim.

2. Carefully cut the cane to this length, ensuring there is a clean opening. Children will need the help of an adult.

3. Continue to cut enough canes to fill the pot. Keep any short, leftover sections for later.

4. Fill the pot with the long lengths until it is tightly packed.

5. Fill any gaps with the short pieces of cane - still with the hollow openings facing outwards so that bees can get in.

6. Find a sheltered, sunny spot and make a base out of stones.

7. Place the pot so that it faces slightly downwards to allow rainwater to escape. Your bee hotel is now ready for guests to move in.

Where to put a bee hotel

Where you put your bee hotel affects the chances of it being used. It is important to position your bee hotel in a sunny location, where it will warm up quickly in the morning. This is particularly important to prevent overwintering insects freezing.

Place the hotel where the tube entrances will be sheltered from heavy rain, but make sure they're not hidden by vegetation. A southeast orientation will tend to give the best balance of Sun exposure and shelter from driving rain.

If you find that bees don't use your hotel, try a different location and consider whether you could add more of the flowers that the solitary bees need. It's worth waiting a year, but if you don't see any plugged tubes by October, try moving the hotel in time for the following spring.

Do solitary bees sting?

Solitary bees are not aggressive. It's highly unlikely you'll get stung if you leave the bees alone. The males lack a stinger and the females generally only use theirs if they are being handled roughly. Even if they do, their sting is much less painful than a honeybee or wasp sting. Families and solitary bees can safely share outdoor spaces.

How to tell if your bee hotel has guests

If you notice that the ends of the tubes are plugged with mud, leaves, resin or fine plant hairs, then you know your hotel has guests. Different bee species use different materials for their nests and multiple types may use your hotel at the same time. If you're lucky, in summer you may even spot leafcutter bees flying to the hotel carrying leaf fragments nearly as big as themselves.

A single tube will generally be occupied by multiple developing bees. Species that use bee hotels tend to create multiple nest cells within a tube, laying a single egg in each cell and separating them with walls made of mud or plant material. The number of cells will depend on the length of the tube.

You may also find that bees shelter in the unoccupied tubes in bad weather during their flying season.

More tips for success

Choose canes and stems that have an internal diameter ranging from 2-10mm to accommodate bees of different sizes. While the red mason bee nests in quite large holes, the small scissor bee needs holes just 2mm wide. Others prefer something in the middle, including 6-8mm for leafcutter bees.

Try to keep your bee hotel dry - damp internal conditions encourage fungal and bacterial diseases. Use a waterproof plant pot (avoid plastic) or place it under shelter, and make sure your bee hotel is tilted downwards so that if water gets in, it can drain away.

Your hollow tubes should be slightly shorter than the container you put them in, to protect them from the rain.

Ensure the cut canes and woody stems don't have splinters sticking out. Rough edges could prevent bees entering the holes or damage their wings. To avoid this, don't use blunt blades for cutting. You could use sandpaper to smooth the cut edges.

Avoid using canes blocked internally with pith or solid nodes, as these create a barrier that the bees can't move past.

If using bamboo canes, cut some at a node to create a closed-ended tube. This will make it more difficult for parasites to gain entry.

Help the bees to find the material they need to build and seal their nest cells - provide areas of mud and leaves.

Grow a variety of nectar and pollen-rich flowers. Solitary bees forage within 300 metres of their nesting sites. We've provided some suggestions later in this article.

Don't make your bee hotel too big. Having large numbers of bees nesting close together increases the risk of diseases spreading. Rather than creating one large bee hotel, consider creating multiple smaller ones using this design and placing them in different parts of the garden. This will better mimic the bees' natural nest choices.

Bee hotel maintenance

There is a risk that pests and diseases will build up in bee hotels if they're not maintained. It is a good idea to replace the used canes each year, after the new generation of adult bees have emerged from the plugged tubes.

Solitary bee life cycle

Solitary bees undergo complete metamorphosis, like butterflies, beetles, flies and some other insects do. Their eggs hatch into larvae which look very different from the adult insects. Bee larvae are also called grubs and look like maggots, with no eyes, legs or wings.

The larvae transform into adult bees within a pupa (the equivalent of a butterfly's chrysalis). This change happens within a nest cell.

Solitary bees mate in spring or summer, depending on the species. The female bee then finds a suitable spot and creates a nest, completing a sequence of nest cells - stocking each with pollen mixed with nectar, laying an egg and then sealing it up.

A larva hatches from each egg and eats the pollen mixture provided in the sealed chamber, growing as it does. It then forms a prepupa, an inactive stage. Many species stay in this state over winter, forming a pupa the following spring. The fully grown adult bee emerges in spring or summer, at which point it leaves the nest and searches for a mate.

Parasitic bees share the same life cycle, but rather than building a nest and stocking it with food, they lay their eggs in the nest of another bee and their larvae eat the food supplied by the host bee for its own larvae. Due to this behaviour they're also called cuckoo bees.

Which solitary bees use bee hotels?

Any solitary bees that naturally nest in hollow plant stems could potentially use this bee hotel. In the UK, seven groups of solitary bees have this type of nesting behaviour: Anthidium, Chelostoma, Heriades, Hoplitis, Hylaeus, Megachile and Osmia. The species likely to use your hotel will depend on where you live and the flowers in the surrounding area - some species are reliant on particular pollen sources.

The following species are commonly associated with bee hotels and gardens:

Red mason bee (Osmia bicornis)

Blue mason bee (Osmia caerulescens)

Orange-vented mason bee (Osmia leaiana)

Patchwork leafcutter bee (Megachile centuncularis)

Willughby's leafcutter bee (Megachile willughbiella)

Other potential bee hotel guests are:

Common yellow-face bee (Hylaeus communis)

White-jawed yellow-face bee (Hylaeus confusus)

Wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum)

Large-headed resin bee (Heriades truncorum)

Small scissor bee (Chelostoma campanularum)

You can find UK distribution maps for these species on the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society's (BWARS) website.

Best plants for solitary bees

Since solitary bees forage for pollen and nectar close to where they nest, suitable flowers are needed in the neighbourhood of a bee hotel.

Early nesting mason bees will appreciate trees with spring blossom or catkins such as goat willow, apple and cherry trees, but they will also visit a wide variety of cultivated garden flowers. Other plants such as dog roses, honeysuckles, knapweeds, thistles and birds-foot trefoil will support a wide range of solitary bees with later flight seasons.

The smallest bees need flowers they can access using their small mouthparts. Hylaeus species favour composites, umbellifers and mignonettes, where flower heads are made of lots of smaller flowers or florets. Other solitary bee species have specific pollen preferences - for example, the small scissor bee requires bellflowers and the large scissor bee needs buttercups.

You can find out more about the flowers visited by particular bees on the BWARS website.

More ways to help solitary bees

Joe says, 'Bee hotels are just one-way gardeners can help provide nesting opportunities for bees. In the UK, the majority of our solitary bee species are ground-nesters. Therefore, where possible, gardeners should avoid laying down hard surfaces in their gardens to allow bees access to areas of soil.'

'Additionally, three of our Osmia species - O. aurulenta, O. bicolor and O. spinulosa - nest inside old snail shells. Allowing snails in your garden creates an important food source for mammals and birds, but also allows these specialised bees to thrive.'

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Most bees in the UK are solitary bees and they are important pollinators. Make this simple bee hotel to provide a home for a variety of solitary bees, including red mason bees and leafcutter bees.