Bug hotels benefit a wide variety of insects, such as ladybirds, bees and spiders. These small structures provide insects with a safe space to gain shelter, lay their eggs, raise their young, hibernate and seek refuge from predators.
Lovell Homes’ popular Drummond Park development in Ludgershall features its own bee and bug hotel, after the developer ran a competition amongst its site teams to see who could build the best one, using re-purposed building materials and natural resources such as leaves and sticks.
Suzie Hewitt, regional sales director at Lovell Homes, said: “Supporting and encouraging the local wildlife which lives amongst where we operate is something very important to us at Lovell, and we hope that many insects are calling our bee and bug hotels home.
“This Insect Week, we’d love to see residents getting involved with us by building their own bug hotels, or buying ready-made ones to keep in their gardens. We hope our step-by-step guide encourages people to get creative and support the insects that are such a vital part of our ecosystem.”
How to build a bug hotel
- Pick your spot
The best place to build a hotel is on flat and level ground, and away from vegetable beds. Your bug hotel will be inhabited by different creatures depending on where you place it, as some critters like cool and damp conditions, whereas others, such as solitary bees, like the sunlight.- Gather materials
Wooden pallets and bricks with holes in them create the perfect base, as they’re sturdy and come with ready-made gaps. The rest of the hotel can be made using any natural materials you can find, such as pine cones, old gardening pots, logs and twigs, dry leaves, bark, woodchips and soil.- Build your structure
Start by laying some bricks on the ground, making sure you leave some spaces in between for the insects to move in. Then, add three or four layers of wooden pallets on top of your bricks to form the structure.- Fill the gaps
Take all your natural materials and fill the holes left by the bricks and pallets. Creepy crawlies like spiders and centipedes go for loose bark and dead wood, whereas ladybirds prefer dry leaves, sticks or straw.- Add the finishing touches
Once your hotel is complete, put some old roof tiles or old planks on top, to keep it nice and dry. Finish off by planting some wildflower seeds around the hotel to provide food for butterflies, bees and other pollinating insects. Now, you’re ready for insects to move in and call your hotel their home.Insect Week is organised by the Royal Entomological Society and is a celebration of all things insect. To find out more, visit https://www.insectweek.org/.
In Wiltshire, Lovell Homes is providing new homes at its Drummond Park development in Ludgershall.
Drummond Park is being delivered by Lovell in partnership with Homes England, and will consist of 412 homes on the former Defence Medical Equipment Depot. The development will feature a collection of 309 two, three and four-bedroom open market Lovell homes, as well as 103 affordable homes – 40 per cent shared ownership and 60 per cent affordable rent – for leading housing provider Stonewater.
To find out more about the homes for sale at Drummond Park, visit https://www.lovell.co.uk/developments/drummond-park-ludgershall/ or call the sales team on 01633 928 856. The marketing suite and showhomes are open 10am to 5pm, seven days a week.
This year, Lovell Homes achieved Gold for customer service with In-house Research, meaning an impressive 91 per cent of customers in the South Wales and West would recommend Lovell to family and friends.
You can also like Lovell on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lovellhomes and follow Lovell on Instagram at @lovell_homes, and on LinkedIn @LovellPartnershipsLtd.