DIY Bug Hotel

A ‘bug hotel’ is an enjoyable way to celebrate your garden helpers, a fun family project and instant garden art.

Beneficial insects are essential for any garden and bugs will naturally find a home under leaves, bark, stacked wood or within your garden beds.

Using natural materials work best, replicating a natural environment for ladybirds, slaters, bees, butterflies and other creepy crawlies. The shelter can be made from upcycling a small wooden drawer, an old letter box or a wooden wine or gift crate, as this project had opted to do. Other insect hotels can be housed in an old car tyre, an aluminum can – virtually anything.

Make it a household challenge to create a bug hotel with backyard and household items, upcycling and recycle wherever possible: spare pieces of fire wood, offcuts from a previous project, and bedding foraged from the backyard.

Although a cute touch, it doesn’t need a roof nor internal dividers – your chosen bug hotel bedding can be layered snuggly within the walls of your chosen box and secured in place by the odd patch of glue. Dried leaves and moss can be contained by light netting or chicken wire, and carefully stacked ‘bedding’ of twigs and pinecones can form an eclectic informal result.

Due to the garden materials used, natural decay will be inevitable – a perfect environment for bugs!

How to make a Bug Hotel

You’ll need

• Wooden box
• Spare wood offcuts (fence paling or hardboard is handy)
• Natural garden bedding, such as pinecones, dried grasses, moss, twigs, bark, bamboo canes
• Secateurs
• Saw, hacksaw, clamps, drill and screws
• No More Nails
• Hot glue gun (optional)

Method

Step 1: Select a wooden box. We recycled a gift crate. If the wood is untreated, best to give it a quick coat of wood stain (water soluble is best for quick drying). Recoats can be applied over time if required. This helps to give the wood longevity in the outdoor elements.

Step 2: For effect, create ‘feet’ and a roof line all in one mighty go (this is for aesthetics only, you can skip this part if you like): measure and cut fence paling to fit the left and right hand sides of box, allowing for a 45 degree roof protrusion (as shown). Clamp wood in place, then screw or affix with No More Nails.

Measure, cut and stain spare wood to size to act as a roof. Roughly sand edges, then affix in place with No More Nails.

Step 3: While the outer casing is now complete, we now create dividers within the inside of the box so we can separate our ‘hotel rooms’. Measure, cut and stain off-cuts that can be placed within the box to create wall dividers. Affix with No More Nails. Repeat as required until desired dividers are in place. Make as many or as little as you wish.

Step 4: Collect a variety of natural ‘bedding’ from the garden.

Use a hacksaw to cut down bamboo canes to size. Drill holes into the soft centre of the bamboo. Stack tightly in one of the dividing cavities. If loose, a dab of glue will help secure them together.

Fill other cavities with remaining natural bedding.

For fun, create a ‘vacancy’ sign. This project used a soldering iron to create lettering on a spare piece of wood, although a painted sign would be easy and safer for ‘little helping hands’. Drill a hole in the upper corners and affix to the roof line.

As seen in NZ Lifestyle Block Magazine, written by me!