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A friendly reminder that these insect hotels need annual maintenance, or else you will eventually have a parasite haven. https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/ho

A friendly reminder that these insect hotels need annual maintenance, or else you will eventually have a parasite haven. https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/horrors-of-mass-produced-bee-houses/ https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/horrors-of-mass-produced...

pvaldes 4y ago
Some parasites of bees are not welcomed, other are very desired visitors. In the top list of most spectacular animals that you can attract to a backyard garden with its unique mix of metallic emeralds, cyan, golden pinks, indigo and magentas. Is just a beautiful part of biodiversity. Healthy bees evolved with parasites and are perfectly able to deal with them and clean themselves. Bees dosed with pesticides not so much.
- eru 4y ago
  Wild bees, yes. If you like to keep domesticated bees, I'm not sure your argument holds?
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    Domestic bees don't visit insect hotels and solitary bees don't share the same parasites as the domestic ones. An apiculturist will need to apply products inside the honeycomb to keep the bees safe in any case. Burning your insect hotel each year does not matter, the parasites are inside the beehive, not in the insect hotel. Is an advice that only helps the seller of insect hotels. Solitary bees don't live in the nests. They lay eggs, add food, close the door and never return.
    - eru 4y ago
      Thanks!
pvorb 4y ago
Thanks! I had no idea about these issues.
greggsy 4y ago
I had no idea - very eye opening. The solution was very pragmatic too: “After all the bees finish emerging (summer), throw out the house. Or, better, burn it and record a video of the fire.”
- nomel 4y ago
  It really makes you wonder how they survive in the wild without us!
  - IntrepidWorm 4y ago
    Its hard to tell if thats sarcasm. :)
  - eru 4y ago
    Well, some insects are domesticated. We don't expect cows to survive in the wild, either. Feral dogs or feral horses tend accumulate some differences from their domesticated brethren relatively quickly.
Fomite 4y ago
When we moved into our new place, we put our fence in a few feet from the actual back of our house, and planted a strip of native, pollinator-friendly plants in a little micromeadow. Cannot recommend it enough.
- tadbit 4y ago
  Got pictures?
  - Fomite 4y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/mOplV2j.jpg https://i.imgur.com/mOplV2j.jpg Taken in August, so the flowers and such are hiding a bit in fairly dry grass, but also shows a bonus visitor.
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  My wife planted a pollinator garden last year and I has a ton of fun photographing bees and butterflies. I had no idea it would attract so many insects. (Sadly, the hummingbirds were too skittish to come close when I was outside.)
  - Fomite 4y ago
    This was surprising to us too - like, we knew there would be bugs, but there were so many. We had a particularly successful Amaranth that was basically a free standing ecosystem.
- mzs 4y ago
  I did a similar thing, planted rose bushes near the side of the house and fence. Then I was really happy with the bumble bees until I found-out they were wood boring bees and they had made their nests in the wood under my roof and fence posts. I had to replace the fence and the wood under the roof. I also uprooted the rose bushes :( Just chalk it up to bad luck, you should be fine.
fleddr 4y ago
I get the point that if you buy a device with the singular goal to maximize a bee population, the author has many valid points. But there's counter points. The first one being is that most of these products, including the one the author is showing in the opening of the article, are not bee hotels. They are insect hotels. Parasitic insects are insects. And there's nothing inherently wrong with them. My tubes are filled with solitary bees, wasps stuffing their tube with tiny spiders, bumblebees, a whole bunch of diversity. And yes, there's competition for tubes and parasitic behavior. Which is all perfectly normal and natural. I photograph insects as a hobby. In the wild, parasitic behavior is the norm. Most caterpillars are dead before they know it, as they're easy prey for parasitic wasps to inject their eggs into. Many insects are covered in mites. What can I say? Insects have a short and brutal life. Most don't make it to adulthood and that is kind of how it is supposed to be. This is not to say that many of the tips in the article are bad, they are still good. But not just for bees, they are good tips in general. The one tip I'd stress the most is the cheap nests being too shallow. In moderate climates where there's an actual winter, don't be afraid to go 30cm deep. The other thing I'd add is to think of their "habitat" outside the hotel. Digg in a bucket of water and you'll have a mini pond where many will come to drink. Plants the proper flowers, etc.
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Weeds are just plants but there are reasons to control them, too - for one we value certain plants over others and certain plants are much more beneficial to ecosystems than others. Too many parasites due to poor design is just a parasite farm which is awfully macabre. I have no sympathy for blood sucking parasites: someone else did all the work and they just come along for the ride. To the flames. On the other hand, I'll tolerate most spiders (yes, not insects, I know) since they actually put the work into making a web and so on.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    Clearly, an insect hotel is not for you. You treat nature as a source of entertainment to cherry pick. Even if you favor particular insect species, usually because of ridiculous reasons like liking their colors, you seem to miss the point that they're supposed to have enemies. Why do you think insects lay an incredible amount of eggs? Because 99% will not make it. They're not supposed to make it. If the caterpillars of your favorite butterfly would all survive, there'd be no foliage left anywhere, which in turn would collapse many other things. Applying human morality to nature is even more ridiculous. Our very own species is a million times worse than the absolute worst parasitic insect.
nabergh 4y ago
Is this necessarily a bad thing? Naturally occurring insect habitats don't get cleaned out, right?
- eru 4y ago
  Depends on whether you think parasites are cool.
t98283762224 4y ago
But the parasites and parasitoids are sometimes more interesting than the bees: https://nurturing-nature.co.uk/wildlife-garden-videos/ichneumon-wasp-ephialtes-manifesto-ovipositing-inside-red-mason-bee-cocoon-video/ https://nurturing-nature.co.uk/wildlife-garden-videos/ichneu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombylius_major https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombylius_major
chmars 4y ago
A company in Switzerland has an interesting business model: You buy a bee hotel (or bee hotels). They provide you with a tube containing a few fresh bee larvae every year before the wild bee season. After the season, you return the filled tubes. They remove parasites etc. and sell the resulting bee larvae for their commercial business with farmers etc. The biannual exchange is free. There is also minimal gamification because you can compare your success with other bee hotel owners from the same company. https://fr.wildbieneundpartner.ch/ https://fr.wildbieneundpartner.ch/ (in French)

pvaldes 4y ago

Some parasites of bees are not welcomed, other are very desired visitors. In the top list of most spectacular animals that you can attract to a backyard garden with its unique mix of metallic emeralds, cyan, golden pinks, indigo and magentas. Is just a beautiful part of biodiversity. Healthy bees evolved with parasites and are perfectly able to deal with them and clean themselves. Bees dosed with pesticides not so much.

eru 4y ago
Wild bees, yes. If you like to keep domesticated bees, I'm not sure your argument holds?
- pvaldes 4y ago
  Domestic bees don't visit insect hotels and solitary bees don't share the same parasites as the domestic ones. An apiculturist will need to apply products inside the honeycomb to keep the bees safe in any case. Burning your insect hotel each year does not matter, the parasites are inside the beehive, not in the insect hotel. Is an advice that only helps the seller of insect hotels. Solitary bees don't live in the nests. They lay eggs, add food, close the door and never return.
  - eru 4y ago
    Thanks!

pvorb 4y ago

Thanks! I had no idea about these issues.

greggsy 4y ago

I had no idea - very eye opening. The solution was very pragmatic too: “After all the bees finish emerging (summer), throw out the house. Or, better, burn it and record a video of the fire.”

nomel 4y ago
It really makes you wonder how they survive in the wild without us!
- IntrepidWorm 4y ago
  Its hard to tell if thats sarcasm. :)
- eru 4y ago
  Well, some insects are domesticated. We don't expect cows to survive in the wild, either. Feral dogs or feral horses tend accumulate some differences from their domesticated brethren relatively quickly.

Fomite 4y ago

When we moved into our new place, we put our fence in a few feet from the actual back of our house, and planted a strip of native, pollinator-friendly plants in a little micromeadow. Cannot recommend it enough.

tadbit 4y ago
Got pictures?
- Fomite 4y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/mOplV2j.jpg https://i.imgur.com/mOplV2j.jpg Taken in August, so the flowers and such are hiding a bit in fairly dry grass, but also shows a bonus visitor.
EvanAnderson 4y ago
My wife planted a pollinator garden last year and I has a ton of fun photographing bees and butterflies. I had no idea it would attract so many insects. (Sadly, the hummingbirds were too skittish to come close when I was outside.)
- Fomite 4y ago
  This was surprising to us too - like, we knew there would be bugs, but there were so many. We had a particularly successful Amaranth that was basically a free standing ecosystem.
mzs 4y ago
I did a similar thing, planted rose bushes near the side of the house and fence. Then I was really happy with the bumble bees until I found-out they were wood boring bees and they had made their nests in the wood under my roof and fence posts. I had to replace the fence and the wood under the roof. I also uprooted the rose bushes :( Just chalk it up to bad luck, you should be fine.

fleddr 4y ago

I get the point that if you buy a device with the singular goal to maximize a bee population, the author has many valid points. But there's counter points. The first one being is that most of these products, including the one the author is showing in the opening of the article, are not bee hotels. They are insect hotels. Parasitic insects are insects. And there's nothing inherently wrong with them. My tubes are filled with solitary bees, wasps stuffing their tube with tiny spiders, bumblebees, a whole bunch of diversity. And yes, there's competition for tubes and parasitic behavior. Which is all perfectly normal and natural. I photograph insects as a hobby. In the wild, parasitic behavior is the norm. Most caterpillars are dead before they know it, as they're easy prey for parasitic wasps to inject their eggs into. Many insects are covered in mites. What can I say? Insects have a short and brutal life. Most don't make it to adulthood and that is kind of how it is supposed to be. This is not to say that many of the tips in the article are bad, they are still good. But not just for bees, they are good tips in general. The one tip I'd stress the most is the cheap nests being too shallow. In moderate climates where there's an actual winter, don't be afraid to go 30cm deep. The other thing I'd add is to think of their "habitat" outside the hotel. Digg in a bucket of water and you'll have a mini pond where many will come to drink. Plants the proper flowers, etc.

bigDinosaur 4y ago
Weeds are just plants but there are reasons to control them, too - for one we value certain plants over others and certain plants are much more beneficial to ecosystems than others. Too many parasites due to poor design is just a parasite farm which is awfully macabre. I have no sympathy for blood sucking parasites: someone else did all the work and they just come along for the ride. To the flames. On the other hand, I'll tolerate most spiders (yes, not insects, I know) since they actually put the work into making a web and so on.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Clearly, an insect hotel is not for you. You treat nature as a source of entertainment to cherry pick. Even if you favor particular insect species, usually because of ridiculous reasons like liking their colors, you seem to miss the point that they're supposed to have enemies. Why do you think insects lay an incredible amount of eggs? Because 99% will not make it. They're not supposed to make it. If the caterpillars of your favorite butterfly would all survive, there'd be no foliage left anywhere, which in turn would collapse many other things. Applying human morality to nature is even more ridiculous. Our very own species is a million times worse than the absolute worst parasitic insect.

nabergh 4y ago

Is this necessarily a bad thing? Naturally occurring insect habitats don't get cleaned out, right?

eru 4y ago
Depends on whether you think parasites are cool.

t98283762224 4y ago

But the parasites and parasitoids are sometimes more interesting than the bees: https://nurturing-nature.co.uk/wildlife-garden-videos/ichneumon-wasp-ephialtes-manifesto-ovipositing-inside-red-mason-bee-cocoon-video/ https://nurturing-nature.co.uk/wildlife-garden-videos/ichneu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombylius_major https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombylius_major

chmars 4y ago

A company in Switzerland has an interesting business model: You buy a bee hotel (or bee hotels). They provide you with a tube containing a few fresh bee larvae every year before the wild bee season. After the season, you return the filled tubes. They remove parasites etc. and sell the resulting bee larvae for their commercial business with farmers etc. The biannual exchange is free. There is also minimal gamification because you can compare your success with other bee hotel owners from the same company. https://fr.wildbieneundpartner.ch/ https://fr.wildbieneundpartner.ch/ (in French)