The Bee Hotel Has Guests

The bee hotel I built last year

Last year I built a bee hotel in the hope of providing housing for some of our native bees. It looks like it worked because I can now see at least four little mud covered holes in the logs I placed in the hotel, which tells me I’ve got some mason bees in residence.

Closeup of a mason bee’s nest in the bee hotel

I’m not sure how to tell whether I have carpenter bees (the big black ones) hanging out because, other than knowing they nest by burrowing into rotting wood, I have no idea what I’m looking for. I did see a few buzzing about the hotel last fall, so I’m hoping that at least one or two found Le Hotel de Sage suitable.

Outside of the few solitary bees, the hotel is also home to plenty of spiders, a mud wasp, and various other wood and hole dwelling insects.

For info on how I built my hotel and the bees native to California, check out my post from last August.