148 MAY 2017
DIY bug hotel
●Building a bug hotel is a fun family
project and an ongoing source of
fascination for children, particularly
preschoolers, who seem to have no
fear of creepy crawlies.
●To build a large bug hotel (my tallest
tower is 2.5m high), use H4 treated
timber for the external structure and
roof, so it doesn’t rot or get eaten by
the tenants! Bolt the frame to a post
concreted into the ground.
●Collect a mix of natural materials
with contrasting diameters, colours
and textures, such as ponga logs, flax
stalks, small and large logs, strips of
bark off firewood, bamboo canes,
bricks, terracotta pots, river stones
and raffia balls.
●You will need secateurs, loppers, a
saw to cut materials to an even length,
and a drill to bore holes in the ends of
logs. My bug hotel is 20cm deep.
●Location, location, location: install
your bug hotel in a sunny, sheltered,
north-facing corner of the garden and
let the squatters move in. All going to
plan, it’ll be fully occupied by winter.better idea. I decided to upcycle it,
giving it a new life and purpose as the
penthouse suite of a bug hotel of
Trump Tower proportions.
Bug hotels aim to provide homely
habitats for biodiverse communities
of beneficial insects, such as beetles,
butterflies and bumble-bees, giving
them a safe winter refuge. They also
look funky in sustainable landscapes
and, having made their debut at the
Hampton Court Palace Flower Show
in London in 2009, these fashionable
follies are getting progressively posher.
Tiny homes are all the rage, but
when I set out to build my bug hotel,
I had grand plans for a palatial
skyscraper – not some budget
backpacker hostel – set in gracious
grounds (a bed of beautiful cascading
blush-pink “Waterfall” begonias).
Sadly, unlike Louis XIV, I didn’t
have 36,000 men to do all the grunt
work but I did have four keen German
volunteers – Debora, Andi, Anna and
Sandra – who were here on holiday at
the time. Together we foraged around
my garden for dried flax stalks, seed
heads, pine cones, twigs, rocks, bricks
and other bits and bobs.
It took a full day to construct the
towers, Jenga-style, and the ordeal
was not without its casualties: we
burnt out my Dad’s 50-year-old
electric drill boring holes into the ends
of storm-felled branches and logs
(the holes look cute but also act as
maternity wards for insect larvae to
hatch out in).
What sort of tenants am I hoping to
attract? All going to plan, I’ll end up
as a slum landlord for hibernating
ladybirds, slaters, earwigs, weevils,
leaf miners, borer beetles, centipedes
and native solitary bees, so named
because they prefer their own company
to the conviviality of life in a hive.
My only hope is that they don’t
trash the place in a hurry. When
popstar Justin Bieber and his
entourage were on tour in Sydney this
year, they left his $20 million rented
mansion in such a state the owners
had to call in a team of fumigators,
but that would rather defeat the
purpose of my fanciful new folly.AWWThe bug hotel's “rooms” are furnished
with natural materials collected from the
garden, such as logs, bark, bamboo canes
and pine cones.