Public asked to set up bee hotels in their garden

• Mar. 5 by Sian Jones (4)

OPAL Open Air Laboratories project are encouraging the public to set up an OPAL bee hotel in their garden to help protect bee populations.

The project is funded by the National Lottery and aims to get people involved with green spaces, by introducing citizen science in the West Midlands.

This has included carrying out a variety of surveys with a pond survey taking place in Sutton Park on May 27^th

Dr Adam Bates has been putting bee hotels across allotments, nature reserves and outdoor education centres around Birmingham and the surrounds. He explained more about the project:

There are two aims, one; to help make people more aware of solitary bees and wasps and the useful ecosystem services that they provide, and two; to study how the local habitat and surrounding landscape influence what species are where (e.g. is proximity to a woodland important, do bees still survive in good quality habitats that are surrounded by intense urbanisation, etc etc.).

I put up around a 140 last year and will be doing the same this year in this continuing study. The hotels used were designed by Robin Dean (of a company called RedBeehive) so that they can be easily opened up to look inside.

I have been touring around allotments in Birmingham giving informal talks on solitary bees. I am also preparing a photo guide to the different types of solitary bees and wasps that can be found in bee hotels so that people will be able to identify them for themselves.

To find out how to get involved with OPAL bee hotels click here.