Bees and bumblebees are in danger a bit all over the world due to pesticides, pollution and lack of spaces where they can safely nest. With them, we are in danger too: without the bees working for us pollinating flowers, a lot of the plants that we rely on for our food supply would simply not bear fruits anymore!
In order to do something small but helpful in this sense, at the Sanctuary of Joy we are building a bunch of ‘insect hotels’ that we are spreading around our field. In the picture you can see a couple of them.
But… what is an insect hotel, exactly, you might be asking?
Not to re-invent the wheel, here’s some info from Wikipedia:
“An insect hotel is a manmade structure created from natural materials intended to provide shelter for insects. […] Many insect hotels are used as nest sites by insects including solitary bees and solitary wasps. These insects drag prey to the nest where an egg is deposited. Other insects hotels are specifically designed to allow the insects to hibernate, notable examples include ladybirds (ladybugs) and butterflies. Insects hotels are also popular amongst gardeners and fruit and vegetable growers due to encouraging insect pollination. […] Solitary bees, some wasps and bumblebees do not live within a hive with a queen. There are males and females. A fertilized female makes a nest in wood or stone and borred into the wood in order to construct a nursery.
The most common bee hotel is created from a sawn wooden log or portion of a cut tree trunk in which holes are drilled of different sizes (e.g. 2, 4, 6 and 8 mm), about a few centimeters apart. […]”
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_hotel
As you can see, it’s very easy and cheap to build insect hotels. Even if you don’t have a big field and don’t live on a farm like we do, even one of those in your backyard or balcony might help save the future of bees – and of mankind.
