Thursday 15 October 2015

Insect (Bug) Hotel

What do you do when you don't want to do any "adult" chores. Come up with a child-friendly project that you can get everyone involved in doing. This is our attempt at a bug/insect hotel.
Step 1: Plan something simple, then quickly allow it to become overly complicated and stressful as you struggle to find materials to meet your complex structure needs!
 
Step 2: Listen to your clever wife and use the slats from your old bed that are stored in the barn and construct a basic frame.
 Step 3: Having not thought it through very much, listen to further advice from your brother and wife and ensure the width isn't too great and stand up against the south-facing wall of the house.
 Step 4: Randomly insert levels with no real thought as to what will be placed on each.
 
Step (where are we up to?) 5: Forage for all manner of natural equipment that might not look out of place in a bug hotel.
 Step 6: Drill some holes in wood for the little critters to be able to use as accommodation.
Step 7: Give up drilling holes of differing sizes in the wood as you can't get the drill bit out of the rapidly heating SDS Drill 
Step 8: Start bunging things on the shelves and make it look rural and jaunty!
Step 9: Get more people involved so as to be able to blame them for any cock-ups that you may have made up to this point. 
 Step 10: Throw some food and forage type things in there.
Step 11: Add some colour, for the wife and two daughters, they like pink! 
 
Step 12: Have the chickens come over to inspect. 
 
Step 13: Chase chickens away as they keep nicking the corn. 
 
Step 14: Voila, you have constructed your first Bug/Insect Hotel... Good job!
Some serious stuff about building these structures.  All joking aside, these are fun, simple and important structures especially for creatures like solitary bees.  Give it a go, post your pictures on social media and inspire others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_hotel
http://www.rspb.org.uk/makeahomeforwildlife/advice/gardening/insects/building_homes.aspx
http://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/sites/birmingham.live.wt.precedenthost.co.uk/files/Insect%20Hotel.pdf

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