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Long ago and far away. And unforgettable. July 2005

29 Jul 2026

Lousy Hotel Avoided

Last summer, I noticed an insect bringing a bit of leaf to plug the hole in a bit of bamboo that is part of one of those folding director’s chairs. Huh? A leafcutter bee, how interesting, and thought no more about it. I particularly failed to notice when, or indeed whether, any adults emerged earlier this year. They must have done; I think that’s some debris just visible in the hole on the left.

On the left, the an bee's nest in the bamboo of a folding director's chair. Some brown organic debris can be seen inside the hole. On the right, a closeup of four holes in the upright of Ikea Ivar wooden shelves, plugged with what looks like mud.

Vacated nest on the left; currently, maybe, occupied nests on the right.

Then, a few months ago, I noticed that almost all of the much smaller holes in the uprights of the Ikea Ivar shelves outside had been blocked up in similar fashion. I did not see it happening, and it seems that the plug is not a leaf but might be mud. Huh? Mason bees?

That led me to think about deliberately building a bee hotel, and I went so far as to buy some bamboo specifically, but one thing after another got in the way and now I am very glad I didn’t, because I would have made an absolutely lousy bee hotel developer.

This dawned on me as I explored the website of a new cyber-chum. Colin Purrington posts really interesting stuff on Mastodon, mostly about insects. I first noticed lots of great macro photos, and then more in-depth content, and then took a look at the website, only to discover a series of posts about insect hotels that brought me up short.

If I had done what I originally intended, I could have been building a slum tenement occupied by ruthless assassins waiting only for their next victim.

Micro-wildlife

All this interest reflects a definite increase in the amount of micro-wildlife on our terrace, five stories up on a hill in Rome. I have roughly identified hoverflies, solitary bees and honeybees, wasps, and moths and butterflies. Others are too small to be sure, and they all move far too quickly and unpredictably for me to get a good look. I haven’t really studied insects for about 55 years, and it would be good to at least know what I’m looking at.

The doomed bee hotel would have been a first step. I have also been looking at hoverfly lagoons as another way to give things a bit of a boost. I think I could hide a stinky swamp somewhere behind all the plants.

I now have the rest of the summer and all of the winter to read up and learn and build a better bee hotel. I’m also going to try and improve my macro-photography which at the moment is acceptable only for things that don’t move much. The bee hotel might help with that.

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