An insect hotel offers shelter to various animals. You can control which insects should visit the hotel. Because the visits depend on the filling of the individual compartments. This article lists suitable filling material for insect hotels.
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Use natural materials
To ensure that the guests in your insect hotel are not harmed or even killed by toxic fumes, only untreated materials should be used to fill the hotel. Therefore, when you buy filling material for the insect hotel, you should pay close attention to the origin. The collection of material from the forest is considered harmless in terms of pollutants.
Filling material for insect hotels
Drilled hardwood
- Guests: wild bees, wild wasps
- serves as a breeding tube and nesting hole
- Hardwood keeps its shape and is weather resistant
- Drill discs or blocks several times (distance: one to two centimetres)
- popular woods: beech, ash, oak, apple tree, hazelnut
- pay attention to smooth side walls and cut edges (insects crawl in backwards)
- Openings between 2 and 10 millimeters in diameter
bamboo
- Guests: wild bees
- serves as a breeding tube
- ideally cut under a knot (natural closure at the end)
- different diameters of the stalks offer shelter to different wild bee species
thin branches
- Guests: butterflies
- serves to rest and as protection from wind and winter
- fresh branches are easier to bend into the compartment
- no thicker than 5 millimeters
- Cover the compartment with a wooden panel, vertical slots as an entrance
Herbstlaub
- Guests: ladybugs and other bugs
- serves as shelter and winter quarters
- only use dry leaves as filling material (mold formation)
- Fill housing to 75 percent
- Secure compartment with wire mesh
Hollow plant stems
- Guests: wild bees, wild wasps
- serve as nesting holes
- Stalk length at least eight centimeters
- Starting the incision behind a knot (natural closure)
- use different thicknesses
- different sized openings attract different species
- are attached horizontally close together
- popular stems: reed, bamboo
wood wool
- Guests: ladybugs, lacewings, catchy tunes
- serves as a warm hiding place in winter
- only use untreated wood wool as filling material
- Cover the compartment with a wooden panel (vertical or horizontal slits as an entrance)
adobe
- Guests: wild bees
- serves as a nesting hole
- Make holes in the bricks with a pipe or hollow stems
- alternatively: small cracks and crevices to build (eat) the corridors yourself
- Material with a long service life
- Allow homemade bricks made from loess clay to dry well before installation
Pithed plant stems
- Guests: wild bees, wild wasps
- serve as nesting holes
- are attached vertically
- popular filling material: blackberries, raspberries , wild roses, thistles, lilacs
Rindenmulch
- Guests: Beetle
- serves as a shelter
- only use dry bark mulch (mold formation)
- Secure compartment with wire mesh
snail shells
- Guests: wild bees, beetles, wild wasps, spiders
- serve as nesting holes
- rather use small snail shells
- Secure compartment with wire mesh
Stroh
- Guests: catchy tune, lacewing
- serves to raise the offspring and as a warm hiding place in winter
- Secure compartment with wire mesh
deadwood
- Guests: Beetle
- serves as a shelter and retreat
- pick up from the ground in the garden or in the forest
- Secure compartment with wire mesh
cones
- Guests: ladybugs, earwigs, lacewings
- serves as a retreat or as winter quarters
- pine or fir cones are popular
- let dry well
- Secure compartment with wire mesh
bricks or bricks
- Guests: wild bees
- serve as nesting holes
- Drill holes of different sizes
- pay attention to smooth edges and side walls
Prevent conflicts in the insect hotel
Conflicts can arise between wild bees and other insects, as the latter like to eat the bees’ pollen. So that the busy bees don’t work for the meals of the other hotel residents, you should not combine straw or wood shavings with hollow stalks, such as bamboo, in one compartment. This is how earwigs, known as pollen thieves, have direct access.
From the outside there is a danger from birds, which also enjoy the collected pollen. To prevent these uninvited guests from snacking, the bee rooms should shelter at a distance of five centimeters at the front of the hotel.
frequently asked Questions
It depends on the material and the location of the hotel. It is important that loose materials such as straw or wood shavings do not become moldy due to moisture. You can renew the thin branches for butterflies in early spring, before the animals start to fly.
This wood wool is not recommended as it is mostly treated. However, you can check with the wine grower if this is indeed the case. If you cannot clarify the point, you should better do without the wool from the boxes for filling.
