On a walk around the Botanic Gardens I found this wooden Insect Hotel structure and interpretative sign, which reads:
Australian Native Bee Hotel
"A Bee Hotel provides nest sites for solitary native bees that usually nest in crevices and hollows in plant stems and wood.
"There are over 2000 Australian native bee species and nearly all are solitary. Natives bees are not aggressive. Females have a sting, but will only use it when cornered and many cannot even get through your skin.
"Solitary native bees make their nests by burrowing into the soil, rotting wood or pithy stems. The Native Bee Hotel provides hollow stems and timber hollows for native bees to make their nest.
There are many rooms in a solitary Native Bee's nest
"An individual nest of a solitary bee built in a hollow, contains a number of rooms or brood cells when completed. In each room the female places pollen and nectar and then lays a single egg before sealing up the room, leaving the egg to develop alone. The female then starts the whole process again, establishing multiple rooms (brood cells), one after the other, in one nest.
"After all the brood cells in a nest have been established, the female closes off the entrance to protect it from intruders, such as ants and parasitic wasps.
Over time the eggs hatch, the larva eats the food supply (pollen and nectar) and then moults into a pupa before emerging as an adult."
The 'Bee Hotel' is a wooden structure somewhat similar in shape to a Swiss chalet with wood shingles for the narrow roof and sides. There are six 'square' sectors with a variety of sawn logs, sticks of various diameters, blocks and bricks; backed by a wooden wall. Off to the side is the interpretative sign.
Address: Botanic Garden, Clunies Ross St, Acton ACT 2601
Phone: (02) 6250 9540
Hours: Sunday to Saturday: 8:30?am – 5?pm
Visited: 1639, Saturday, 1 September, 2018
Entry is FREE