{"id":1248,"date":"2026-09-12T12:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T10:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/placeholder-event\/"},"modified":"2026-11-14T19:03:37","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T18:03:37","slug":"wild-bee-hotels-what-they-achieve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wild-bee-hotels-what-they-achieve\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild bee hotels: what they achieve &#8211; and what they don\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Putting up a wild bee or insect hotel does not contribute to biodiversity. The reason is simple: the usual nesting aids provide housing for cavity-nesting wild bees, that is, for species that build their nests in existing cavities. They account for 5 per cent of all native species. Many of them are not threatened at all and need no support. Only rarely does a threatened species find its way into a bee hotel.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Andrena_probata_female_2021-05-17_Wallis_3_small-1024x683.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-136\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Andrena_probata_female_2021-05-17_Wallis_3_small-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Andrena_probata_female_2021-05-17_Wallis_3_small-980x653.jpg 980w, https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Andrena_probata_female_2021-05-17_Wallis_3_small-480x320.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" \/><figcaption>Andrena probata (female) flies only in Valais. Photo: \u00a9 J\u00fcrg Sommerhalder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The benefit lies elsewhere: you can conveniently watch a few mostly common species nesting. That is no small thing &#8211; but it is nature observation, not species conservation. And it is not only bees that are attracted, but also wasps, beetles and other arthropods.<\/p>\n<p>Pre-stocked hotels with so-called starter populations are a real problem. We advise against them.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who genuinely wants to support wild bees starts with nesting sites and food &#8211; for the species that actually occur locally. The <a href=\"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/bee-finder-supporting-local-wild-bees\/\">Bee-Finder<\/a> shows which those are.<\/p>\n<p>In detail on the page <a href=\"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wild-bee-hotels\/\">Wild bee hotels<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nesting aids are popular, both as a craft project and in the shops. For biodiversity they achieve almost nothing &#8211; and one variant does actual harm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1248"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2123,"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions\/2123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igwildebiene.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}