Build A Bug Hotel From Your Recycling
Since moving house, there’s been a big list of things that Luke and I wanted to do in our brand new garden. Two were very important, so made their way right to the top of the list. One of those was growing our own food, another was to build a bug hotel. I can now officially say that we have ticked both of those off the list!
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Building your very own bug hotel from recycled materials couldn’t be easier. You really don’t need many items in order to build a bug hotel and it’s likely that you’ll already have everything you need at home already.
Bug hotels are a great way to encourage insects into your garden.
I once read that at any given time, your garden might contain around 2000 species of insect. Some of these are pests – insects that most people don’t welcome so kindly into their garden because they eat their plants. Others are beneficial insects that feed on the pests and pollinate flowers.
The benefits of building a bug hotel.
If you choose to build a bug hotel, you are encouraging biodiversity. Biodiversity refers to the variety of plants and wildlife in any given area; in this case, that area is our gardens!
Building a bug hotel helps to boost the number of beneficial insects visiting your garden by recreating their natural habitats. Not only does this make bug hotels amazing for our environment, but bug hotels can also aid children’s education about the world around them and add a decorative area to your garden.
There are countless more benefits to building a bug hotel, here are just a few of them:
- Beneficial insects feed on your common garden pests, saving you from using chemical pesticides.
- Provides an opportunity to educate children about the world around them.
- Encourages insects that help with pollination to visit, including varieties of bees
What can you put in a bug hotel?
We all know that bugs love dark spaces, wood, dead leaves and little holes that they can safely hide in. When you build a bug hotel, you need to recreate the bug’s natural habitat. When out and about in your garden, or when you’re out for a walk, look out for the following:
- Dead wood
- Tree bark
- Pinecones
- Small stones
- Twigs
You can also use cardboard tubes, egg cartons, old planters, hay, bits of old tiles and so much more.
For a free downloadable bug hotel checklist, click here!
How To Build A Bug Hotel
For our bug hotel, we used recycled tin cans from our tinned foods such as baked beans and tinned tomatoes. You can use a variety of different containers, just ensure that the container you decide to use is open at one end and closed at the other and has the capacity to hold all your fillers.
Build A Bug Hotel From Your Recycling
Equipment
- 6 Recycled tin cans
- Silicone or Super Glue
Materials
- Toilet roll tubes
- Twigs
- Pinecones
- Dead leaves
- Dead wood
- Tree bark
Instructions
- Ensure your tin cans are washed and dried.
- Using silicone or super glue, carefully attach the tin cans to one another. I attached 3 cans to create the base, 2 for the middle and 1 can for the top.
- Depending on the adhesive you used, leave the cans to dry. If using silicone, I recommend leaving it to dry over night.
- Once the adhesive is completely dry, you can begin filling your bug hotel. Fill each tin can with a different material.
Notes
Where to put your bug hotel.
The joy of bug hotels is that you don’t necessarily even need a garden to have one. If you have a balcony, you can tie a bug hotel outside to attract insects. It’s best to ensure you have lots of insect friendly flowers around to help attract them.
If you’re placing a bug hotel in your garden, make sure that it’s level if placed on the ground and it won’t fall over or be blown over by the wind. Make sure it’s protected from things like flying footballs and it’s surrounded by flowers. If you’re growing vegetables in your garden, make sure your bug hotel is kept well away from your veggie patch.
Lukeosaurus And Me
Rachael is a 31 year old mum to 10 year old Luke and 5 year old Oscar. She lives in England and writes about family life, crafts, recipes, parenting wins(and fails), as well as travel, days out, fashion and living the frugal lifestyle.
15 Comments
Samantha Donnelly
What a great idea and lots of fun for the kids to make and watch as bugs find their new habitats x
Rebecca Jones
this looks excellent – well done. Great fun for the kids to see the insects and bees. We’ve had a pile of twigs in the corner of our garden and it’s made such a difference to bio-diversity in our garden.
Jennifer
A great activity to fill the time during lockdown. It’s also really important for kids to learn the importance of taking care of nature
Rebecca Smith
A bug hotel sounds like a great idea! The kids have made them at school but I think we might just make one here!
Jenni
Oh it looks like you had so much fun! We have built a couple of these in our time, but we need to build one for our new garden – and I think I know the perfect spot!
Kacie Morgan
I like the idea of having a bug hotel in your garden. I’m not a big fan of creepy crawlies but I can see how it might benefit my garden and the plants I plan to grow in it soon.
Hilary Johnson
Well done Rachael. Great to see this and the positive comments you’ve had.
My husband build a rather large scale bug hotel with his group of 30 children at our church holiday club. Although it’s made from wood, all of it is reclaimed and recycled and the chicken wire on the front I collected from someone giving rolls of previously used wire away by the roadside.
The children thought it was fabulous. We placed it in our churchyard and dedicated it at a family service a few weeks later, so that the children had a chance to gather materials to put in it.
I wrote new words to the tune for ‘cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green’. My song was ‘Ladybirds red and beetles black’
Great to hear of people caring for the environment and involving children.
Bella and Dawn at Dear Mummy Blog
We have a lot of recycling building up and using it for crafting but this is a great idea using it for a bug hotel – one task to do next week! Thanks!
Sarah Ann
This is a great idea and looks like so much fun for kids. I’m actively trying to encourage wildlife to my garden (even our smallest friends) and this is such a clever way to make use of what you have.
Jenni Grainger
This is such a great idea! I have been meaning to make a bug hotel for so long but hadn’t considered using tins we had in the house. Definitely going to do thsi
Kara Guppy
My kids love making homes for bugs in the garden. This is such a cool idea and I am sure you will have some happy wildlife
Hannah
This sounds like a great idea. Never heard of a bug hotel before. This is making me want to go and make one
Sarah | Boo Roo and Tigger Too
My son has to build a bug hotel as part of his homeschooling activities, please to see that it is relatively easy to do.
Yeah Lifestyle
What a fantastic idea and one I know my kids would love to do as they adore bugs and these uses recycled tins which we have plenty off at home
John Spear
This looks interesting something I’ll love to explore thanks for sharing 🙂