This is probably what you will ask when you hear such a combination, and you will be even more surprised if you learn that "insect houses" and "insect hotels" are not only children's fun, but adults also do it. Why are such houses needed on the site?
This “invention” is now especially popular with gardeners in Europe: such “birdhouses”, not only for birds, but for insects, are made as full-fledged art objects and decorate the garden by themselves. In addition, the "hotels" for insects shown in these pictures are too high above the ground. In our climate, in order for insects to settle into rooms and overwinter with the onset of cold weather, it is necessary that it be covered under a layer of snow.
You probably know that in addition to their importunity, insects (not all, but there are many) help get rid of garden pests. If everything is clear with bees, wasps and bumblebees - who, if not they, are doing all this gigantic work of pollinating flowers? - then the six other workers and fighters of the garden look like this:
Such a neighborhood, as we see, will be very desirable - why not invite them to spend the winter safely, so that in the spring they rush with renewed vigor into the battle with garden pests?
The basic principles of creating a house for insects are extremely simple - even easier than making a birdhouse.
1) it is necessary to create protection from wind, moisture and, in fact, cold - recesses that you will drill in wood, and the width of the dwelling itself must be deep enough not to freeze in winter;
2) when creating a house, do not use coniferous wood and synthetic materials, as well as fiberboard, chipboard - materials obtained by pressing sawdust and glue;
3) if “rooms” with filler are provided in the house, do not use foliage: mold and other harmful fungi can settle on it, which the inhabitants of the hotel will spread throughout the site;
4) all elements must be securely fixed: in this way you will strengthen the structure and create additional protection from birds that will gladly feast on the inhabitants of the "nest".
Branches, bricks with pores and voids, bark, straw or hay, moss, hollow tubes of dry plants, pebbles, ceramics, wood logs, branches and other similar things are suitable as elements.
Can, in addition to beneficial insects, pests settle in the house? Hardly: how will they get along with their natural enemies?
Not so long ago, we wrote a note about which insects are not harmful, but, on the contrary, help summer residents by destroying their voracious counterparts to someone else's harvest (you can find it).
You can attract beneficial insects to the garden, first of all, by planting fragrant plants. But in order for as many of them as possible to decide to stay in your garden, you need to approach the issue more carefully and take care of housing for our smaller brothers.
In much the same way that we build birdhouses and titmouses, we can build houses for beneficial insects. However, they will look, of course, a little differently.
It is no secret that in many European countries, beneficial insects are specially bred and sold via the Internet and ordinary stores to summer residents. This direction is very popular among Europeans who care about the environment and strive for everything natural.
And of course, such demand gives rise to proposals for housing for new settlers. Everything to make them feel comfortable and at ease.
In our country, neither insects nor houses for them are sold yet (at least we have not met this). But you can take care of comfortable conditions for little helpers yourself. And it's not difficult at all. And now it is especially important, because autumn and winter are just around the corner, when insects need reliable shelter more than ever.
Most beneficial insects choose shelter from fallen leaves, bark, old boards piled up in a heap as wintering ... That's all and use it for the house. Various sticks and twigs, straw are also perfect.
Shelters can be stacked in piles in the garden, or they can be decorated decoratively by putting them in boxes and boxes and placing them in the garden.
Even more interesting ideas for building houses for ladybugs, lacewings and ground beetles - see our video clip:
Fighting pests of gardens and orchards, we often forget about bringing them to our plots.
In Europe, special houses are popular - shelters for insects that can be purchased, but making them yourself will not be difficult and costly.
Old boards, unnecessary bricks, pieces of roofing tiles and roofing material, bundles of straw and reeds, bamboo tubes, chips, pebbles and much more - all this will serve as material for the house. A beautifully stacked pile of firewood is also suitable for overwintering many beneficial insects.
If you have imagination and certain knowledge about their habits, you can decorate the garden and acquire its defenders.
What kind of insects should be "tamed"?
Both larvae and adults are voracious predators, eating mainly aphids, whiteflies,. Even a small number of bugs can bring significant benefits in the fight against garden pests. In many countries, ladybugs are bred for the purpose of selling to gardeners.
Lacewings, hoverflies - their larvae deserve no less attention and protection from our side, since they are also aphid exterminators.
In two weeks, a lacewing larva can destroy up to 500 aphids!
You can lure ladybugs and lacewings into your garden by planting plants such as angelica, dill, or leaving yarrow and dandelion to bloom. Red elderberry, on which aphids love so much, will help preserve the larvae of ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies. And forget about using pesticides in the garden!
If there is little food, adult insects can disperse and leave places that are not rich in food. Therefore, special food is sprayed inside the house and on plants for feeding.
Artificial food "Wheast" (whey-whey, yeast-yeast) is in the form of a dry powder that contains nutrients for the reproduction and growth of beneficial insects. Diluted with sugar and water (1:1). There are also special baits based on pheromones.
Those baits that are used to feed the bees can also be used by amateur gardeners.
Ladybugs can winter in secluded places among dense vegetation, fallen leaves, under the dry bark of trees or indoors, sheds. They often fly into houses, nest between doors, in the folds of curtains, window frames. Adult lacewings can also overwinter in protected areas, but, unfortunately, few survive until spring.
You can improve the biosecurity of the garden by installing houses that will help ladybugs and lacewings survive the winter.
These cute tower houses can be bought or made yourself from birch, oak and other similar hardwoods with intact bark. The holes are drilled at a slight angle upwards in order to increase the number of separate "rooms" for residents. The roof is removed for inspection and cleaning. It is better to install such a house in a protected, warm place in the garden, in a clearing among the flowers. Can be placed in the garden at any time, preferably before aphids breed.
The first house has slits on the side, the second in the front. Small holes were drilled at the bottom of the houses in case of water ingress.
If we make such a house with our own hands, then inside the box we place corrugated cardboard with cells like large honeycombs. You can insulate such a house with dry leaves, straw, pieces of bark, wood chips, wood shavings. But there should be enough material inside the house to leave gaps in which beneficial insects can hide and survive the winter.
Don't forget to use the "Wheast" lure as well.
Here is a plastic box for ladybugs that is resistant to weather changes. It provides convenience and safety for ladybugs. Overwintering or surviving cold nights in early spring will not be a problem for them.
Inside the house is the material listed earlier. There are holes on the bottom. A wooden house for lacewings is similar to a house for ladybugs, only deeper and larger. The survival rate of lacewings during such wintering increases from 5% to 95%, the reproduction of aphids in the garden is thereby reduced. The house is best placed in the garden in September.
A large sparse grille of sloping slats prevents water drops from getting inside. There are small holes drilled in the bottom of the house. The roof opens on hinges. Put straw treated with bait inside the house, you can also use the material mentioned earlier. Change straw at the end of summer every year. Another option for a home for lacewings: a box house with side and bottom bars, the material is thick waterproof plywood, inside is wheat straw.
House for earwigs
Such an insect as an earwig, or a two-tail, although not attractive in appearance, is useful in its essence: their food is the same aphid.
Small earthenware pots hung upside down from aphid-infested bushes or trees will provide both a home and good bait for earwigs. However, as soon as the aphids are destroyed, the houses should be removed, since young leaves may suffer from the voracity of the earwig.
Nests for bumblebees - wooden blocks with drilled holes (from beech, pine). It is better to install such houses in a sunny and wind-protected place.
Most importantly, create good hiding and feeding conditions for insects in your garden.
Leave unsightly, at first glance, stumps with cracks, snags, in some places places overgrown with wild dense vegetation, wild flowers. It is important to use organic mulch in the garden.
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How to make an insect house in 5 steps
Build an insect house with scrap materials to help balance your wide variety of plants and increase biodiversity in your yard.
This simple design will help attract beneficial insects to your site, which will bring invaluable help in pest control.
Building a house for insects (photo 1)
1 - Start by collecting natural materials to build an insect shelter: Roundwood, brick, straw, tubular stalks. Choose from improvised local materials that offer more or less large openings to suit different insect preferences.
2 - Make a wooden frame strong enough to support a considerable amount of weight. Use sustainable woods: oak, larch, chestnut... Estimate the size of your house in terms of the amount of materials you have. Put the heaviest materials on the bottom. (photo 2)
3 - Provide a waterproof lid construction (slate for example).
4 - Install the frame in its permanent place before filling (due to weight if the house is large). Raise it 20cm off the ground to keep it out of moisture (and so your dog doesn't nest there). To protect the house from strong winds, hammer stakes around the perimeter and strengthen the house on them, for example.
5 - cut the material to the desired length and fill each opening in the structure (photo 3)
Tip: If you can install the house in a place protected from the wind and sun, you can leave it open on both sides. Otherwise, it is better to close the back side so as not to disturb the insects too much with air currents.
What materials, for what insects? (photo 4)
1. Straw or wood: This material will attract lacewings, whose larvae feed on many pests: aphids, powdery mildew, whiteflies, mite eggs.
2. bamboo sticks: provide shelter for solitary bees that pollinate the first flowers of fruit trees from March
3 inverted pots filled with hay: it attracts earwigs that love pests such as aphids (photo 5)
4 boards hidden behind these metal plates: attract insects involved in the decomposition of dead wood
5 drilled decks: These will become a popular home to many very beneficial pollinators such as bees and solitary wasps whose larvae feed on aphids. (photo 6)
6. tubular stems: such as blackthorn, elderberry, will provide housing for hoverflies and other hymenoptera.
7. Brick: valued by solitary bees.
8. Small cells closed from each other: they attract ladybugs that come to spend the winter. Their larvae destroy a lot of aphids. (photo 7)
Place this house near your garden and it will provide you with pollination of your herbs, vegetables, and flowers and you will help to contribute to the health of your local ecosystem. Just remember to move slowly and not threateningly near the house, and not to disturb the alert residents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EfPmbADIcM 
A hotel for garden insects a few years ago could hardly be called a popular landscape object. Performing both practical and decorative functions, such an artificially created refuge for beneficial insects was not at all familiar to many gardeners. Thanks to the efforts of designers who drew attention to the possibilities of developing art objects that serve as a home for the smallest inhabitants of the garden, insect houses have become fashionable. But despite all their unique artistic merit, the main goal is to increase the number of useful fauna in your garden and preserve valuable insects in general.
augerbWhy do we need houses for beneficial insects?
The garden is filled with life by its invisible and largely underestimated inhabitants - birds, insects, various animals. If everyone takes care of attracting birds to the garden, they are fed and provided with additional food in the cold season, then insects are often forgotten. But these modest useful helpers solve many problems in the garden. They not only pollinate plants, but also participate in the invisible fight against pests and even diseases. And beneficial insects should be attracted to the garden no less than butterflies or animals, even if you do not even think about collecting your own honey.
In Europe, and throughout the world, they have long been loudly shouting about the problem of preserving bees, whose populations have been catastrophically reduced, and parks, gardens, zoos are invariably equipped with insect houses. In our country, almost no one has heard of an ecological catastrophe, which is threatened by a reduction in the number of beneficial insects. Meanwhile, everyone can and should fight against the trouble. And for this there is only one way - to create special shelters - houses, which are called hotels for beneficial insects or simply hotels for bugs.
Yersinia What is a bug hotel?
A house for beneficial insects, a hotel for bugs, or an insect house is any special building, a small accumulation of materials or a house in which beneficial insects, honey plants and other enemies of garden pests - lacewings, ladybugs, riders, hoverflies, ground beetles, etc. This is a comprehensive solution to the problem of attracting beneficial insects to your site and preserving their population in nature.
Universal cute houses, which are actually a warehouse of materials where beneficial insects can equip their homes, are among the objects of small architecture, along with garden sculpture or gazebos. They really can turn into a modern, stylish and very original garden decoration. Each such house for insects is unique in its own way and will become a bright individual touch in the design of the garden as a whole.
shastan Such hotels are traditionally given a decorative form of a house like birdhouses, but larger, filling the interior with floors of cells in which insects can live. But it is not necessary to build a house. You can use old boxes, old plant containers that are no longer needed, leftover boards, pallets and just bricks with cavities - holes.
Materials can be folded into a pyramid, laid out in the form of a wall, construct original structures or make a full-fledged frame of a house or cottage. The main thing is that the hotel has a roof and walls that will serve as reliable protection from wind and precipitation. It all depends on your imagination and time. And, of course, the desire to create not just a functional, but also an attractive object that will become a real decoration of the site.
In fact, even modest specially laid out bunches of brushwood can be called a hotel for insects. But usually in designs they go much further, realizing their fantasies and tastes. Most often, hotels are made of wood, but any non-synthetic materials will do (and you need to choose a tree that is not coniferous).
You can make a full-fledged house with rooms, or you can simply knock down a triangle from the boards, dividing the interior space into sections and sections with partitions. By placing different materials in which insects usually live in each zone inside the hotel, from porous stone and brick to brushwood and bark, choosing filler with holes of different sizes, you will create all the conditions for bees and other beneficial insects to master such a house over time and turned it into a real shelter under the roof.
To protect against birds, sometimes the house is covered with a net on top.
Janet Roberts
How to make a house for beneficial insects?
The most important thing in setting up a bug hotel is to collect materials in which beneficial insects can make their home. You can use the same type of filler. But only a certain kind of insects will be tempted by them, and not different inhabitants of the garden. So if you want to build a real hotel, then you should make sure that under one roof and in one structure there are a variety of materials with holes of various shapes and sizes. You can use for garden insect helpers:
- drilled pieces of wood with vertical or horizontal strokes;
- small remains of boards and logs;
- cones;
- straw;
- large sawdust;
- bark;
- a variety of plant residues, dry inflorescences or vines;
- stones and pebbles;
- spikelets;
- hollow stems (cereals, bamboo, reeds, sunflowers, corn):
- clay bricks with holes, etc.
Clive Barker The materials are applied tightly or smeared with clay so that it does not crumble over time. For bees, the main thing is holes in stones and hollow drilled holes or empty stems so that they can safely hide, settle, lay eggs and, having easily closed the hiding place, wait for the offspring to appear. Completely harmless and very useful osmium bees are attracted to the site by thatched roofs, marsh reeds and other tubular hollow stems in which they create nests for themselves. But they will also settle in drilled long holes on a piece of wood. For ladybugs, materials are best sprayed with sugar syrup. And lacewings love cones and dry stems of various vines.
The hotel for insects is always placed in a place protected from precipitation and always on a warm sunny site. In the shade, beneficial insects will not be tempted by your shelter. In the warm season, insect houses are more of an art object than truly functional baits for beneficial insects. They perform their real functions, first of all, in the cold season. In regions with mild winters, they can be placed at any height. But where the winters are harsh, garden hotels for beneficial insects are placed so that in winter they can be covered with snow - at a maximum height of a meter or on the ground. Or provide for the possibility of renting a hotel and lowering it to the ground.