Gardosi Bee Hotel Craft Kit for 10 tin cans

Making insect hotels yourself is now very easy: With the Gardosi craft kit from Gardigo, you can use an old tin can to build a beneficial nesting aid for wild bees in no time at all. Everyone has a tin, decorative material and tools at home, so they are not included in the scope of delivery. The filling material for the bee hotel and other accessories are supplied in this craft set. The perfect idea for rainy weekends, dark winter evenings, activities for children's birthday parties, kindergarten & daycare parties, etc.

The following materials are included:

• bamboo poles (for 10 can fillings)
• nesting poles (10 pieces)
• stainless steel skewers (10 pieces, for cleaning the bamboo poles)
• d-ring hanger (10 pieces)

Optional tools and accessories required - not included:

• 10 tin cans (⌀ 10 cm)
• hot glue gun
• drill
• rubber mallet
• paint brush
• eco-friendly paints
• decorative material (e.g. cords, pipe cleaners, buttons, bottle caps, buttons, ...)

There are no limits to your imagination when designing your Gardosi bee hotel. It is best to orientate yourself on the existing decorative material. Suitable leftovers for upcycling can be found at any home.

The detailed instructions describe exactly how an insect hotel for wild bees can be made in just a few simple steps.

Why build a bee hotel?

You can read a lot about the problems that bees are facing, but what is usually meant is the honey bee, which lives in large swarms and is bred and supported by beekeepers. They are fostered and cared for and their existence is not endangered.

In complete contrast to around half of the approx. 560 wild bee species living in central Europe. The great insect die-off is causing them problems. Most wild bees do not live in swarms but solitary. In our intensively farmed agricultural environment, they often lack a source of food and natural nesting sites. Instead of nesting in beehives, many species nest in boreholes in dead wood or hollow reeds. These are the exact species which you can help by setting up a bee hotel as a nesting aid.

Build a bee hotel out of bamboo

The individual bee species differ greatly in size, shape and colour. It is therefore important to provide different sized nest tubes. The size of the holes in the supplied bamboo varies naturally. The use of this material automatically promotes biodiversity, because different species can find a suitable tube for them. Since there may still be some pith in the bamboo tubes, we include a skewer (not pointed) to clean the tubes, as some wild bees only colonize tubes that are free of the pith.

The bamboo poles included in the set are approx. 12.5 cm long. This is important because fewer brood cells are created in tubes that are too short. In addition, it is mainly drones that hatch from short breeding tubes. Sufficiently long tubes enable a more balanced ratio of male and female bees.

Setting up the wild bee hotel correctly

For setting up, we recommend a place in full sun that is protected from moisture so that the bees can develop optimally. The bee hotel is best placed near flowering plants. If too few of these are growing in your garden, it is worth sowing bee-friendly seed mixtures. These are commercially available.