Monday

Make You Own Minibeast Hotel 

Outdoor Activity

You will need:

• A suitable container or area in your outdoor area (preferably wooden)
• Tubes (could be an empty kitchen roll tube)
• Compost (or any soil)
• Fir cones
• Dry leaves 
• Bark
• Pieces of wood (various sizes)
• Straw/hay
• Different sized/shaped stones
• Dead wood/sticks
• Bricks
• Plants that will attract insects

Please don't worry if you don't have all of the above items, just use what you can! 

Method

1. Choose either an area in your outdoor area or a wooden container and place it on the ground.

2. If the container hasn't already got holes in it, make some holes in the bottom. That will create drainage and let the minibeasts crawl in. 

3. Fill the container with compost/soil.

4. Use your resources to build various places for minibeasts to live.

5. Woodlice and beetles will like wood/sticks and if stacked, the minibeasts can crawl through them. 

6. Plants will attract the crawling bugs like caterpillars, snails and spiders.

7. Butterflies and bees will like nectar-rich flowering plants.

8. It's up to you how much you put in your bug hotel.

9. Observe the hotel over time and see which minibeasts it attracts.

10. Can you find out which areas each kind of minibeast likes best?

Email your photos of your minibeast hotels - we'd love to see them!