How to make a bug hotel
23rd Apr 2020
Creepy crawlies play an important part in maintaining our ecosystem, pollinating plants, eating pests and providing food for other wildlife. As winter approaches help future generations of these bugs survive the colder months by making our fab bug hotel to place in your garden.
Provide some 5 star luxury accommodation for little critters to hibernate in over the winter! 
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
- Plastic plant pot
- String
- Bamboo canes
- Corrugated cardboard
- Newspapers or magazines
- Elastic bands (optional)
HOW YOU DO IT
- Measure the depth of the plant pot from the bottom to underneath the top lip, ours was 9cm. This is how long your bamboo canes need to be cut and how wide the cardboard needs to be.
- Thread the string through the base then out of the front of the pot. This will be what you use to hang up the hotel in the garden later.
- Cut about 20 pieces of bamboo and fasten together with an elastic band or string.
- Wrap the corrugated cardboard around the bamboo canes and secure with an elastic band or string. It needs to be as tall as the bamboo canes and long enough to wrap around 2-4 times. Ours was about 9cm x 40cm.
- Place this bundle into the centre of the plant pot then stuff scrunched up/ twisted pieces of newspaper tightly in between the card and the pot sides.
- Find a sheltered spot in the garden for your bug hotel and hang on its side to prevent filling up with rain or snow. Then just leave it for bugs to move in and set up home in all the nooks and crannies.
OUR USEFUL TIPS
- You could acrylic paints to decorate the outside of the plant pot to make it look more homely.
- Keep a record of the different bugs you see using the hotel.
- Make the hotel in different sizes or place in different locations to see if they attract different creatures.