Build a Brick Bee Hotel.

by janw in Living > Gardening

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Build a Brick Bee Hotel.

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Solitary or wild bees live on theire own and like to build their nests in holes in trees, walls,etc... so if you want them to live in your garden, you can provide them with these ideal homes yourself by building a bee hotel. It can be anything from a block of wood with holes drilled in it to a stack of small bamboo tubes.



While cleaning up in the garden this afternoon, I came across and old brick. I did strike me immediately that I could use it to build a bee hotel.

I looked in my shed for other materials and found what I needed:
  • a small piece of multiplex
  • some screws

The Build

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For this build, I didn't measure anything. I just looked for materials around my shed that looked nice when combined. The total build, including hanging it on the wall, took less than 10 minutes.

I found a nice leftover piece of multiplex and fixed the brick to it with long screws. Then I used my drillpress to drill two holes in the wood. These holes where then used to fix the bee hotel to the wall with screws.

Hang It Up

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There are only a few guidelines about how and where you should put your bee hotel:
  • choose a dry spot
  • choose a sunny spot
  • make sure that there are enough plants and flowers, that bees like to visit, within 50m of your bee hotel.
The height doesn't really matter but the look nicer when placed at eye level.