How you can help - make a bug hotel

Bug hotels are becoming more important to help our insects survive. Habitats are being lost when farmers cut down hedges, so we need to help give bugs other places to live. Insects are very important to humans because they pollinate about 80% of our plants, so without them we would not have enough plants to eat. They also help to spread seeds so plants can grow in different places, and some help to break down dead material to make compost which also helps plants grow and keeps the soil healthy. Lots of birds and other small animals eat insects and so without them, these animals would die too.

Here is how we made the bug hotel in our garden:

1. Decide on a place in your garden to build a bug hotel. We put ours near the wild flower area.

2. Collect materials like sticks, pine cones, pebbles, bark and leaves.

3. Make a frame for your bug hotel, with different rooms. You could make this with wood, putting blocks between the layers, or you could use bricks like we did. It is good to have lots of different 'rooms' or areas in the bug hotel for different types of bugs.

4. Fill each of the different 'rooms' with different materials. Different bugs like slightly different things or conditions so if you have more different options you are likely to get more types of bugs.

5. Decorate it, if you want to. We put a bug hotel sign on the top and added some colourful butterflies that we had made.

6. Wait for the guests to arrive!

We hope you will have a go at building a bug hotel. If you do decide to build one, please let us know how it goes.