Insect Hotels

The insect hotel, recently refurbished by students and awaiting occupants, in the Garden Classroom at Sonoma State University. Author’s photograph

Some years ago, during my studies of beneficial insects in gardens, my graduate advisor returned from Germany with a well-chosen gift: Das Insektenhotel, a book about “insect hotels,” constructed habitats for insects. One look at the charming illustration on the book’s cover, and I knew I must have a hotel in my garden. I was familiar with bee  blocks,  designed  to  accommodate  nesting orchard mason bees, but this book’s author suggested that hotel lodgers could include a wide variety  of  pollinators  and  other  garden  allies.  Das Insektenhotel is packed with detailed plans for insect homes, charts of plants that provide pollen and nectar, and details of the natural history  of  beneficial  insects  that  may  use  hotels (including many common insects found in Europe, North America, and elsewhere). Despite my rudimentary German language skills, Das Insektenhotel quickly earned a favored place on my bookshelf. With its most relevant passages translated, it is...