There are over 19,000 different kinds of bees and 30% of them live in a tunnel or cavity. You can help these tunnel-nesting pollinators out by providing a place for them to call home. I'm not sure where the name came from, but kids these days are calling it a bee hotel.
Making a bee hotel is a fancy way of saying you're collecting hollow tubes, putting them somewhere and leaving them alone all Spring and Summer. A bee hotel won't get you honey or beeswax, but some of the common tunnel-nesting bees like leaf cutters and mason bees are great pollinators of a lot of plants including veggies, fruits and herbs.
In this episode I explain how to make a bee hotel, how to care for it and clean it out, and what to plant to attract some common tunnel-nesting bees.
For those of you who love bees and want to have more in your neighborhood, but aren't able to keep honeybees, this is a great alternative. It's also a wonderful project to do with kids and help them learn more about bees.
Check out our blog post about it at: https://www.beekeepingmadesimple.com/blog/make-solitary-bee-hotel
Here you'll see a bunch of sample bee hotels, my personal bee hotel and links to learn more about bee hotels and tunnel-nesting bees.
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