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How to Make a Bug Hotel

Want to give pollinators a place to stay and recycle while you're at it? Follow this guide and gather some materials for this easy project. Let's open a bug hotel!

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Supplies Needed: 

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  • 2-Liter bottle

  • Pinecones

  • Sticks

  • Cardboard

  • Bee tubes

  • Scissors

  • Clear packing tape

  • Decorations (construction paper, markers, crayons, stickers, tape, etc.)

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Optional: mesh and hot glue

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Gather supplies! Find interesting and natural elements that you can use to personalize your bug hotel. This is where about half an hour of stick collecting got me. 

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Cut off the top of your soda bottle, leaving about ¾ of the bottle.

Put one or two small pinecones in the bottle.

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Trace the open end of the bottle on a piece of cardboard and cut out the traced circle. Adjust the circle size if necessary to make it fit in the bottle.

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With scissors, poke multiple holes in the cut-out circle big enough for bugs to get through. Slide the circle on top of the pinecones in the bottle.

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Measure the diameter and height (from the cardboard circle to the open end) of the bottle.

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Cut out two cardboard rectangles with these two dimensions. Make a slit through the middle of each rectangle, extending about halfway down the cardboard rectangle.

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Slide the two cardboard rectangles together in a "X" shape using the slits.

Place this X on top of the cardboard circle. Trim the cardboard if necessary.

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Fill the 4 compartments with sticks, leaves, pinecones, rolled-up cardboard strips, etc.

I bought a pack of cardboard bee tubes on Amazon to put in mine and cut each in half to get double the amount!

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Decorate the outside of the bottle! Once you're finished, you can wrap it in clear packing tape to waterproof it. 

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Place your bug hotel in an area facing east, preferably at least 2-3 feet off the ground. All that's left is to wait for your insect guests!

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Notes: 

  • If you'd like, you can use a piece of mesh from an onion/orange bag on your bug hotel! Cut out a triangle shape and hot glue the corners of the mesh over one of your compartments. Remember to cut holes through the mesh so bugs can get through. In the pictures above, I hot glued the blue mesh over just one of my compartments, but you can put mesh over as many compartments as you like.

  • To make your bee tubes stay together neatly, use a rubber band to keep them together. If you cut them in half, make sure to have the neat, uncut side facing out.

  • Make sure your bug hotel won't roll away! Depending on where you put it and how much space you have left in your bottle, consider putting in a heavy rock.

  • Got nowhere to set your bug hotel? You can also hang up your bug hotel with string. Either wrap the string tightly around the bug hotel OR poke two holes on either side of the bottle and thread the string through both, tying the ends together.

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