Buglington Hotel

So people began to realise the importance of insects and that it’s essential that we stop using poisonous sprays on our crops and instead encourage a balance of insects to do the work for us.

The main pollinating insects are: bees, butterflies, moths, flies, ants and beetles – not forgetting birds of course!

So bearing all of this in mind, we thought a Bug Hotel here at the Irish National Stud, would be a good idea … so that there would still be humans around to look after the horses!

A Bug Hotel is made up of sticks, bamboos, bits of bricks and timber. In fact you can use any old bits of things like pots or branches or cardboard rolled up and lots of other things to make a hotel in your own garden.
The simplest way to make it is to get a bit of a drainage pipe or an old flower pot with the bottom missing. You then stuff this with bamboos leaving the cut ends exposed, and I bet in no time your Bug Hotel will be full of the most amazing creatures!

The insects will automatically find their way into it. They like dark, squashed places. Just be a bit careful sticking your fingers in – remember some insects nip and sting!

If you don’t want to build a Bug Hotel yourself just go and look under a flower pot or brick at home, I bet you’ll find lots of woodlice, beetles and worms!

To encourage even more of the pollinators into a Bug Hotel, it’s a good idea to plant wildflowers nearby. We’ll be sowing wildflower seeds around “The Buglington” in the next couple of weeks so hopefully we’ll have lots of butterflies and bees all summer!

IMPORTANT. One thing you must remember, if you’re sowing wildflower seeds you must make sure that they come from Ireland and not from another country.