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I stop using bee hotels

Simone_in_WiltshireSimone_in_Wiltshire Posts: 1,073
in Wildlife gardening
I have two types of bee hotels. One of them can be opened to clean it, the other 3 typical builds - in the picture on the left - which you can find all over the place.
Problem with the common one is that they cannot be opened and bees can't be checked.
Having the better hotel in the second year, it was not used much last year, I opened it and checked what's inside.
The first row from the bottom had leaf-cutter bees and 75% other bees and at closer inspection, the bees were in a quite devastating condition. I actually found only 4 which were okay.
Opening the second row from the bottom, here is were the drama started. Almost all bees were either destroyed by white worms or had other issues like mould. The higher up I came, the more devastating was the result.
I then took one of the common bee hotels and noticed that I have simply no chance to get the cocoons out without destroying them. Knowing the condition from the better hotel, who knows what dramas happened here.
I remember that one comment (or discussion) that I had found a few years ago, where somebody warned that bee hotels are a death trap and warned not to use them. Almost all other comments contradicted him and a kind of "let nature do what it wants" mood was mentioned several times.
After reading that discussion, I opened the following April one tube to found a bee alive, and I was convinced that it was all good.

After today's experience, I finally learned my lesson. 
I have done  and will do everything to support the bees as far as flowers and variety are concerned, but no more bug/bee hotels. I let nature do what it wants and I'm sure they will find a place on their own without my involvement.
As soon as bees see these bamboo sticks, they start using them, following an instinct which is however not planned and constructed as our bee hotels. Nature doesn't provide well-sorted bamboo sticks. I have to assume that bees were happy keeping their stock alive without bee hotels.

While cleaning the hotel, I even thought "who knows why they are in decline, probably since we offer them these hotels".


I ♥ my garden.

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  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I’m in full agreement with you Simone,  bee’s have been in decline recently.  Who knows,  I don’t interfere with any type of creatures in the garden,  un natural food for hedgehogs for one,  I grow flowers for pollinators,  I have a pond for spawn,  they will take care of themselves. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • NormandyLizNormandyLiz Posts: 788
    I've recently read A Sting in the Tail by Dave Goulson (very good if you've not read it). I had until then assumed that insect hotels would be good for bees but he doesn't rate them. On the website of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (that he was instrumental in setting up) there is a bit about hibernation

    https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/how-do-bumblebees-hibernate/

    and also how to build a potential bumblebee nest

    https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bumblebee-nests/#provide


  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445
    edited December 2023
    I still have a couple of boxes on the wall but they were gifts, not of my choosing. I prefer to do nothing for anything except to provide as good a habitat as possible for any wildlife that turns up. To me that's a pond, rough areas, stick and log piles and general 'leave it alone' gardening style. Choosing to support any one species over another is interfering with the balance and ecosystem of the garden


    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    I’ve also read that bee hotels are not fit for purpose - many are more focused on ornamental rather than wildlife value. We have one, also a gift, which I have put up happy in the knowledge (from my research) that everything about it is completely wrong for bees and is therefore unlikely to attract any 😂

    We have lots of wild corners and if and when I cut down any hollow stemmed plants, I leave the stems where they fall or sometimes put them in bundles behind some old trellis.
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited December 2023
    Having used four or five different models of bee hotels over the years - made and bought - I'm not sure what I make of it all.

    "The first row from the bottom had leaf-cutter bees and 75% other bees and at closer inspection, the bees were in a quite devastating condition. I actually found only 4 which were okay."

    If you have a type (like the left hand pic) where you can easily remove the cocoons, then we are usually advised to do so around Oct and keep them in a cool, pest-free place inside until March/April. This keeps them away from predators and moulds. Once the cocoons are removed one can clean out the hotel. I do ponder what goes on inside the boxes you can't open. I have a Pilkington box (types used at Kew) and last winter I opened it and there was a grand mess inside. Pilkington says that his boxes have to be thoroughly cleaned each year. And I agree.

    I have to assume that bees were happy keeping their stock alive without bee hotels.

    Wild bees are genuinely struggling, and populations are not doing ok in the UK or Europe. More than a third of wild bee species are in sharp decline in the UK.  

    Prof Dave Goulson is a specialist in bee health. He founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. He argues that "everyone should have a bee hotel in their garden". He seems to argue that we should choose models that can be cleaned (agreeing with Pilkington and the Wildlife Trust).

    The hotels do get predated by spiders, and wasps (possibly the white larva you see). But they are part of the cycle too. Opening the boxes you may well see lots of cleaner mites, cleaning up bodies or frass - part of the necroshpere too. I don't personally worry about that too much. If you find a lot of dead bees or defunct cocoons it might be more a reflection on the very odd weather of the past few years. For the first time this year I had zero coccoons, having been full (288) last year. It's fascinating and odd to watch the cycles and try and learn. I have followed Goulson with interest and would back his expertise any day, as the leading "bee man" in the Britain.








  • Simone_in_WiltshireSimone_in_Wiltshire Posts: 1,073
    Thanks for your thoughts. I wonder how much wrong advice is given in every garden programme without real knowledge what happens further down the years. We probably kill many millions of bees year by year with our bug hotels just out of commercial interests and repeated so-called “must-do it’s said it helps”. 

    I ♥ my garden.

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I wonder how much wrong advice is given in every garden programme without real knowledge what happens further down the years.


    That's why it's good to look at the science.

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    NormandyLiz said:
    I've recently read A Sting in the Tail by Dave Goulson (very good if you've not read it). I had until then assumed that insect hotels would be good for bees but he doesn't rate them.
    Was it not certain types that he doesn't rate? In the links above he loudly campaigns for bee hotels, but ones that are built to specific specs and ones that can be cleaned. For wild bees, the tubes do need to a certain length, blocked at one end and positioned properly. It's easy enough to buy paper tubes that can be replaced each year, making the boxes easy to clean.
    ----
    I think that my conclusion, from my reading on the subject over the past five years or so, is that bees have specific needs - you can't just whack up any old box and hope they will take to it. I am sure that gardening magazines, charities and programmes have fallen victim to over-enthusiam - making the project seem easier than it really is, accessible and good for kids to make. "It's easy to help" etc. As with growing wild flower meadows, or putting up bird feeders or bird boxes, you have to cover certain bases to make it work. And you have to be careful - which isn't a very sexy message.

    I think that if you follow the science, the research and the specs I think bee hotels (meadows, bird feeders and bird boxes) can be very useful .

  • thevictorianthevictorian Posts: 1,279
    I'm an admirer of Goulson also. 
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Goulson has made several videos on designing bee hotels.


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