This week the Green Impact blog is being hosted by SITraN. This year we are concentrating on the ‘Grounds’ workbook and hoping that we may be able to improve on our Bronze award we got last year with a Silver. Last year we installed a bee hotel on our green roof but it was smashed in one of the many gales we had last winter and so this year we set out to make a more robust model. So to tell us more about Bee Hotels and what we have done with ours thsi year Dave Drew one of the technical team at SITraN has written todays blog for us:
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Don’t bees live in hives? :
Honey bees do live in hives but there are other species of bees that don’t such as bumblebees and solitary bees. The bee hotel is specifically for solitary bees.
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Which solitary bees will check in? :
Depending on area, flowers nearby and environment it’s possible you could see red mason bees, blue mason bees, leaf-cutter bees or white-faced bees.
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How do I make a bee hotel? :
There are a couple of ways to do this, first you’ll need a container this can be either a plastic bottle or a wooden structure (see below picture) and bamboo or other hollow stems to fill the container.
Just cut the stems or bamboo to the same length this will be where the bees nest and pack them tightly into the container as seen below.
Or you could find a log and drill a number of holes in approx. 3-5mm in diameter and you get the same effect. This is the one we put up in SITraN.
We researched on the web the best place to locate the hotel and have placed it about 2 metres above ground level on a south facing window sill so it gets plenty of warmth. It is also very sheltered here and is protected from the rain by an over-hang from the balcony above.
We are pleased to say the SITraN bee hotel is now taking bookings!