Bug Hotel or Beetle Bucket
An average garden accommodates more than 2,000 different species of insect! There are so many reasons why insects and other bugs and minibeasts should be welcomed to our outdoor spaces. They can be an important source of food for other animals like birds and bats, essential to pollinate our flowering plants and crops, predators to other insects like aphids, and useful workers when it comes to decomposition and giving us nutrient rich soil. By providing the right habitats, we can greatly increase the number of ‘beneficial’ insects in the garden.
The Wildlife Trust and RSPB
The Wildlife Trust and RSPB
Pledge 1 - Bug Hotel
Think carefully about what bugs you will be accommodating. Just like humans bugs can be fussy when choosing a home, and different species have different requirements. Finding the right position for your Insect Hotel or Bug Box if you want success some bugs like it dry and sunny, others cool, shady and damp.
Think carefully about what bugs you will be accommodating. Just like humans bugs can be fussy when choosing a home, and different species have different requirements. Finding the right position for your Insect Hotel or Bug Box if you want success some bugs like it dry and sunny, others cool, shady and damp.
- Lacewing larvae are perfect pest controllers - Make a Lacewing Hotel (Friends of the Earth) and hang it from a tree or shrub.
- Follow the Natural History Museum's guide to making a Ladybird Lodge. Choose somewhere sheltered for your ladybird lodge and make sure it is protected from heavy rain.
- Build a Bug Mansion following the guide from The Wildlife Trust or Build a Bug Hotel from the National Trust
- "Offer solitary bees five-star accommodation with an easy-to-make Bee Hotel" RSPB
Pledge 2 - Beetle Bucket
From Wild About Gardens you can download a great leaflet telling lots about beetles and showing you how to
From Wild About Gardens you can download a great leaflet telling lots about beetles and showing you how to
- Make a Beetle Bucket This is a perfect project for small gardens - fill a bucket with rotting wood and leaves to make a home for all sorts of beetles and other insects.
- Build a beetle bank – Adding a mound of soil, particularly in flat gardens, adds both shady and sunny habitat and provides shelter for lots of invertebrates
- Make a dead hedge – Structured piles of branches and twigs can be used to divide up an area of the garden and provide a residence for beetles as they rot away
Other useful resources
Wildlife Gardening - Gardening for Bugs - Buglife
How to make a Bug Hotel The Right Way - Gardenninja
Insect Hotels: A Refuge or a Fad? - Entomologists Lounge
Wildlife Gardening - Gardening for Bugs - Buglife
How to make a Bug Hotel The Right Way - Gardenninja
Insect Hotels: A Refuge or a Fad? - Entomologists Lounge