How to make a bee or bug hotel

• 1.4m length of treated dressed pine 140mm wide
• Mitre saw
• Measuring tape
• Sandpaper
• Wood glue
• Masking tape
• Brad nail gun or electric drill and screws
• Marine plywood
• Cloth
• Resene Waterborne Woodsman in your choice of wood stain colour, Fleur used Resene Skywater
• Lengths of bamboo, small logs, bark

Note:  This could be a Bug Hotel or a Bee Hotel. A Bug Hotel is designed for any bugs, whereas a Bee Hotel is designed for Solitary Bees (other bugs may live in there also) and not for the normal honeybee. Honey bees are communal bees and they live in a community such as a bee hive. Solitary bees will be attracted to a bee hotel and honeybees will not.

Instructions

Step 1:  Set your mitre saw to a cutting angle of 30 degrees and cut your length of wood into 6 equal lengths so that the long side of the finished board is 23cm long. Use sandpaper to remove any rough edges. (Photo 1).

Step 2:  Use wood glue to glue your hexagon together. Fleur found it helpful to use some masking tape to hold the edges together while the glue dried. (Photo 2). Once the glue is dry, use a brad nail gun or an electric drill and screws to secure the corners together.

Step 3:  Cut a piece of marine ply to fit the back of the hexagon and nail or screw this into place. (Photo 3).

Step 4:  With a soft cloth, rub on the Resene Waterborne Woodsman stain. Fleur used the colour Resene Skywater and applied two coats, allowing dry time between coats. The colour gets darker with the more coats applied. (Photo 4).

Step 5:  Drill a hole in the back of the plywood for hanging the bee hotel up.

Step 6:  Cut lengths of bamboo, small logs/branches into 14cm lengths. Drill holes in the ends of the logs to create extra homes for bees. Drill a variety of hole sizes. If it’s a bug hotel, vary the hole sizes between 2mm and 10mm. If it’s a bee hotel vary the holes between 8mm and 10mm.

Step 7:  Fill the hexagon with the cut bamboo and wood. You can also include bits of bark. (Photos 5 and Finished project).

Step 8:  Hang the hotel in a warm sunny position, as least a metre off the ground and where it will be sheltered from rain.

Top tip:  Rather than stain your bug or bee hotel, you can paint it. Choose one Resene colour to suit your garden, or use a range of Resene green paint colours and sponge them on for a camouflage effect.

Project and images by Fleur Thorpe. September 2021.