Making bug hotels

Bug hotels can be welcome havens for wildlife looking for a home and making your own can be a simple construction project that you can return to over time; watching it flourish with life as local critters start to fill it.

That’s why we decided to make a couple of bug hotels with our young people in the orchard of our Dewlish Care Farm Site.

Making one requires some creativity, simple construction skills and some items that you are likely to have around your home and garden – we were certainly in luck with materials at the farm! Children were set on a task to hunt out items like flowerpots, piping, wood, roof tiles, straw, bricks and pinecones, providing us with a great opportunity to enjoy the outdoors (which we know has lots of benefits), use our senses and be inquisitive. We asked questions along the way like ‘what does this material you’ve gathered feel like? How heavy is it? What bug do we think might enjoy it?’

With our wheelbarrows full of their finds, and some wood pallets good to go, we were all set to construct the hotels. We chose two spots in our sloping orchard – one on higher ground near to the hedgerow and one on lower ground, shaded under some trees. We thought that choosing two spots would give us a good opportunity to learn more about the creatures that we hoped would begin to inhabit our hotels, as we’d be able to contrast and compare.

With our wood pallets stacked, the children set to filling all the gaps with the materials they had collected from around the farm; making sure that the layers were diverse with varying materials and compactly filled. We found many learning opportunities as we built out hotel – from predicting what bugs might enjoy the hotel, noticing what life was already around us as we were building, discussing what we can expect in the different seasons, as well as teamwork and listening skills.

With construction finished, there was a clear sense of accomplishment in the air and the children seemed excited to come back and visit what they had built. So far, on return visits, we’ve found spiders, woodlouse, ants, and some bugs we have yet to identify! We’ll be sure to continue to visit their brilliant bug hotels regularly, with identification cards and magnifying glass in hand.

We recommend this how-to guide from the RSPB if you’re interested in building your own bug hotel.