Support Native Pollinators with Bee Hotels and Solitary Bee Services
Combat habitat loss by providing nesting habitat with bee hotels, and boost biodiversity by bringing native bees themselves to your property.
Industries We Serve
What are Bee Hotels?
Bee hotels are the insect equivalent of a birdhouse. These wooden structures provide nesting habitat for various species of solitary bees. These species make their homes in holes in dead wood, hollow plant stems, or other nooks and crannies. Bee hotels mimic these natural nesting sites, providing shelter and protection.
What Pollinator Species Live in a Bee Hotel?
Bee hotels attract species that make their nests in stems and wood. Since the majority of native pollinators make their nests in the soil, the primary guests in a bee hotel are leafcutter bees and mason bees.
You can bring just a bee hotel to your property and see who decides to pay it a visit, or you can purchase mason bee cocoons directly from us; our beekeepers will install them into the hotel for you.
Benefits of Bee Hotels and Mason Bees
Bee Hotels
An original, handcrafted home for native pollinators
In the fall of 2023, Best Bees partnered with students at Massachusetts College of Art and Design to design original bee hotels. Our final design incorporates our favorite elements from the students’ pieces.
The bee hotel is made of natural wood panels with deep, drilled holes forming the cavities for nesting. The hotel itself is elevated to eye-level on a wooden post. At the base of the post is a garden container, so you can provide the native pollinators with an easy and convenient food source!
Your bee hotel then becomes an important asset for our research on native bee health and population levels. Best Bees beekeepers, in addition to caring for and collecting data from your honey bee hives, will monitor the hotel and collect data to track its activity and occupancy.
Solitary Mason Bees
Mason Bees (Magachilidae Osmia): Native pollinator powerhouses
If you have purchased a bee hotel, you can also add some guests right away with our mason bee cocoons. Mason bees are excellent pollinators – they're fuzzier than honey bees, so they tend to spread more pollen from flower to flower as they forage. Additionally, they are not as efficient at carrying their pollen as honey bees are, which means they have to visit more flowers, more frequently.
Another difference between mason bees and honey bees is in their defense mechanisms. Mason bees rarely sting, and if they do, their stingers lack venom (unlike honey bees). The sting's discomfort is comparable to that of a mosquito bite.
Best Bees beekeepers will bring 20 mason bee cocoons to your property to install into your bee hotel. When they come to check in on your honey bee hives, your beekeepers will also check in on your mason bees and record data on their activity and status.
More Data, More Impact
Native bees are notoriously hard to monitor due to the fact that the vast majority of native bee species – approximately 85% – are solitary. We do know that native bees are threatened by the same things that threaten honey bees:
- habitat loss
- pesticides and pollution
- climate change
Adding a Best Bees Bee Hotel to your property gives us greater insight into the status of native pollinators, and contributes unique data that will be crucial to future research efforts.
Bee Hotel and Mason Bees Availability
Bee Hotels are available for purchase in all of our service areas.
Mason Bee cocoons are available only in the following cities:
- Chicago
- Denver
- New York
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- Washington, DC
Interested in getting mason bees available in your city? Get added to our waitlist by emailing [email protected].
These offerings are exclusive to Best Bees clients.
