Bee & Insect Hotel

Hi everyone, Jeanette here from The Enthusiastic Gardener. Now today I'm so excited because I finally have my own bee and insect hotel. So I've been wanting one of these for ages, I was going to try and make one, but I happened to see this in Poundstretcher, it's perfect. So I'm going to put that up and I have been researching all about bees and it is absolutely fascinating. There are so many good YouTube channels you can check out. One I really like is from someone I subscribe to, his name is Gardener Scott. He's a lovely man from America. And he talks all about bees and explains a lot of things that I didn't realise. We all obviously know how important bees are to the whole planet really. If there weren't any bees, there wouldn't be any flowers. If there were no flowers and plants, we wouldn't have oxygen, we would not exist. They are so important, it's just incredible what they do for our planet. So we need to look after them as much as we can. A lot of people think of bees as honey bees, the ones that you have in hives, the ones that you have to go and collect the honey wearing all the protective gear and all that sort of thing. That's what generally people think of. But there are just a very, very small percentage of the different bees. I believe in the UK there are a few hundred species of bees and a lot of them are solitary bees, which means they don't all go in one big nest with one queen. They're solitary bees, they live alone. About 70% of those bees make their nests in the ground, but then about 30% of them need little places like this. These tiny little holes. There are loads of bees, there are mason bees, there are leafcutter bees. So many varieties. And what happens is these bees just go around on their own. They don't have big pollen pockets, such as honey bees. Now one thing is absolutely fascinating about how they use these little circles here. And you get them all different sizes, you can see tiny ones there, bigger ones, all different sizes. And what they do is, with a female, you'll go into one of these, which are about that long. She will go right to the end and she will lay her egg there and she will put some pollen there. She'll seal up that little chamber with either some mud or some leaves or something like that. So that little tiny chamber will be sealed. That egg that she has laid will be a female. Goodness knows how, but it is a female. So that will be right at the back of here, the furthest away. Next to that chamber, she'll lay another egg. That will be a male. She'll do exactly the same. She'll seal off that. Then she'll lay another egg, each time nearer and nearer to the front. These will all be males. So there could be four or five little chambers all in a row. And then each one will be sealed off. Then those eggs hatch. They become larvae. The larvae will eat the pollen that she's left in each little chamber. Then they'll eventually hatch. The one nearest the entrance will hatch first. You would think it would be the other way around because that's the latest one to be laid. But it isn't. That one goes. That's a male. Off he goes. Then all the males take turns to come out. Finally, the female will come out. She will be much larger. She will hatch. She will go off. And then the whole process will start again. So it's fantastic. A brilliant, brilliant way of keeping the bees going. All it takes is put a little bee hotel up. You can make them yourselves. You can just use a big square or rectangle. Find old logs. Drill some holes in. The only thing is they mustn't be pressure treated with any chemicals. Because that will affect the bees. So you don't want to do that. You can't paint this. You can't wood stain it. Or varnish it. Or anything like that. No chemicals at all. Because that will hurt the bees. And then of course, as well as bees, this can house insects. All beneficial insects for your garden. Ladybirds. Hundreds of different things. And they will look after your garden. And they can get rid of the less beneficial pests in your garden. Such as aphids on your roses. So it's just a whole system of looking after your garden. And all it takes is something like this. So I'm going to put this up on the wall. You have to put them either facing east or south. It's for the morning sun basically. Because then it will warm up all of this. And wake them up in the mornings. And send them off on their way to collect all their pollen. So I'm very excited for my new bee and insects hotel. Now I've just got one little section up here. That you can open. This is for insects. Ladybirds and things like that. It's already got some little pieces of wood. What you can do is add some leaves. So I've got some leaves. And I'm just going to stuff some leaves in there. Those in there like that. To make it all cosy. A little hideaway for the insects. I'll just put those in there like that. This is very exciting. I can't wait to see what ends up living in here. There we go. So we put those in there. I'm just going to add some little bits of bark that I've got in the garden. All nice and cosy. There we go. Close that. And they can get in through the little tiny wire mesh. And then of course we've got some things here as well. Lottie wanted to say hello. She's a good girl. She's been barking. Because she wants to go out for a walk. Ah, see. I hope you've enjoyed this video. I hope it inspires you to maybe do something for the insects and the bees in the garden. I'm Jeanette. I am the Enthusiastic Gardener. This is Lottie. We're in Essex in England. Hope you enjoy our video. We put videos up every Thursday and Sunday. So hope to see you soon. Have fun in your gardens. Bye for now. Bye.