Since a couple of years I have an insect hotel in my backyard. It's a nice wooden 'hotel' with some wood chips and bamboo sticks to give insects a place to stay.
These insect hotels are meant to give insects shelter. Especially solitary bees, that don't have hives to stay in.
But despite the fact that I have it for a couple of years already, somehow I have never seen any insect in my hotel. I have moved it from place to place in my backyard to see if it mattered, but the hotel had no visitors... until this year!

Last week I suddenly saw some small bees flying around my insect hotel. And when I took a closer look I noticed that some of the bamboo sticks where sealed off! Finally, after many years I have some visitors in my hotel 🎉

This is what the hotel looks like:

I took the advantage to grab my camera and micro lens to capture some of the hotel guests in action.
The guests are Heriades Truncorum, a small species of bees. It's a very common species here in Europe, but the numbers declining. This is mostly because of the loss of habitat. There is less dead wood and there are fewer wildflowers.
These bees find small holes in old wood to make their nests. An insect hotel with bamboo sticks is perfect for them to make nests.

The bees look for narrow, hollow spaces like a tunnel to lay their eggs in. The insect hotel with the bamboo sticks is perfect for this. They collect pollen and nectar from flowers and leave it in the 'tunnel' with the egg as food for the larva. One stick can contain multiple chambers of larvae.
Then they use a combination of sand and resin to close off the end of the bamboo stick to protect it against predators and bad weather.
The young bees stay inside the nest all through the winter and they chew their way out in spring or early summer.

Bee sealing off the end of a bamboo stick.

These two bees were constantly flying in and out of these holes. They probably made some nests deep in these tunnels. I wonder if I will see these holes sealed off later on.

I've also shot a short video where you can see them in action. It's nice to see them flying around my hotel.

I'm happy that I'm able to do something for these bees.

Friendlymoose

I'm an amateur photographer with a love for indoor gardening, craft beer, and cycling. As the owner of the Cycling Community and the creator of the Topcomment initiative, I focus on fostering engagement and bringing like-minded people together.
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