Like birds,
insects
face problems with their habitat and food disappearing, and not just during the winter.
At certain times of the year, because of the effectiveness of weedkillers used in field crops, the poor have no more flowers, vegetables and fruits to eat and literally die of hunger.
Building an “insect hotel” allows them to
store food
safely and
protect themselves from
cold
winter temperatures.
Biodiversity is thus preserved.
To discover
True or false: fight misconceptions about the garden
How to house insects?
To help bumblebees, bees, ladybugs and other insects find a safe home, you can choose to keep it simple by installing hollow bricks, old logs or bundles of branches in your garden.
But you can also
set up an “insect hotel”
.
They can be found in specialized stores, on the Internet, but it is also possible to make them yourself.
Read the filePests, insects: all our advice to protect your garden
How to make an insect hotel?
Aesthetic or not, insect hotels serve as havens for insects.
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Aesthetic or not,
insect hotels
serve as a refuge for the various "useful" insects in the garden.
Read alsoTen little beasts at the service of the gardener
To build your insect hotel, it is recommended to use untreated wood.
Be careful, many woods sold on the market have received insecticide and fungicide treatments.
Which is extremely harmful to insects.
It is best to go directly to a professional.
He can provide you with untreated boards.
You can also contact beekeepers near you.
They will tell you the local suppliers they source from to build their hives.
To make your insect hotel, use drilled logs, preferably hardwood, such as oak or hornbeam logs for heating.
It is also possible to use pine, fir, spruce, poplar wood.
What to fill an insect hotel with?
For the well-being of its future residents, remember to fill it with:
mousse
snail shells
dry herbs
dead wood
straw
dead leaves
of wool
However, be wary of the plants you use because some will be potentially toxic to insects.
Where to install an insect hotel in your garden?
An insect hotel cannot be installed just anywhere in a garden.
It is recommended to place it in a place well exposed to the sun and sheltered from the rain and the wind, so that your hosts can start breeding with the first rays of the sun in the spring.
Finally, to protect your installation from humidity and thus make it durable, place it on an insulating base or install it high up.
How to attract insects to an insect hotel?
To encourage insects to settle in an insect hotel, several solutions exist.
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To
encourage insects to settle
in an insect hotel, several solutions exist.
First, place flower beds near your insect hotel to make it easier to attract insects.
You can also sow commercially available
“pollinator-specific”
wild grass mixes .
And choose to let grow certain plants that are particularly popular with insects, such as sweet clover, red clover, bird's-foot trefoil, mallow, centaury, great daisy, dead nettle, vulnerary, sage, etc.
If you sow a green manure (organic), use phacelia, a very melliferous plant that bees and other pollinating insects love.