Insect hotels

Tiffaney Dex wrote:
We get biweekly updates from the LPO and I know that they are concerned about it, but they haven't mentioned what is killing them.  My husband is still cutting wood from Ciaran and he comes across their carcasses still, along with rabbits. The rabbits all died because they got the hemorrhagic disease. But I haven't learned of what got the hedgehogs still.

That's so disturbing! We're living in very strange times. But this explains some of the sudden slug population explosion...oh dear.

Great idea. Unfortunately those little square blocks of pressed bord will rot and come all to pieces. I've tried to used those pallets before. They're some of the worst to fall apart quickly.

im a hoarder of scrap metal, scrap wood, etc... i have a child that is now 7 years old. just inherited the money to move to a nicer climate for my wife and child.   WE ARE LIVING IN SOUTH DAKOTA!
here are some things that i did.
a friend have me a bunch of 4x8 foot panels made from 2x2's and covered with chicken wire. they were from his chicken pen. when my btrand new "powermate" shredder  i purchased to make wood chips out of brush completely destroyed itself (the company generac)( actually gave me my money back on it) i made a 8 foot wide L shaped  curve about 50 foot long to pile the brush in. it leaned against 3 popular trees on one side and had a 30 foot long wood pile on the other side. wood was stacked 6 rows deep and the big stuff was never split.  i started some "Virginia Creeper" plants from cuttings, and planted them so they could grow over and hide the brush pile.

i had picked up  about 8 old discarded "power wheels" cars, and lined them up along the road at the back of our property facing the road. i put a 3 foot tall skeleton (someone discarded after Halloween) in a jeep i painted camo with the wig from a discarded doll and chopped off 3 fingers so "she" was flipping the bird to passer by's.  the other day i dis assembled 4 of those cars to made 2 run and accept new power wheels 12 volt batteries. (i sold 4 bad batteries to the scrap yard to help pay for the new batteries. now my child can ride cars around the acreage with a friend and race.  while taking every screw (classified as steel at the scrap yard, as opposed to tin)(steel if over 1/8 inch thick, and i have a gauge) i showed my wife the SHED SKIN OF A GARTER SNAKE INSIDE THE AREA where the motors were.

i also used old bicycles tied to 1 strand of steel wire and t-posts to make a fence along one side of the property.
a neighbor runs a bee farm and gets old IBC'S , they make bees wax, honey etc... A LOT OF IT COMES IN 55 GALLON METAL BARRELS FROM SOUTH AMERICA. THEY SOAK OLD FRAMES IN BOILING WATER TO EXTRACT THE BEES WAX and make huge blocks of wax, they also built a HEMP HURD PROCESSING PLANT.  they use the plastic containers from the IBC's  for the bees wax processing, but discard the metal removeable top 55 gallon drums and the metal cages from the IBC tanks. THEY GIVE THIS METAL AWAY AND HAVE ABOUT 2 ACRES where they stack these!   ive taken quite a few of these ibc cages and metal barrels to put scrap metals in. some of the ibc cages ive cut up boards and logs to store in these cages

i really think that "there is no such thing as trash, just things are in the wrong place"!!

if i had chickens or a fish pond, i would run cables across them and at least 5 foot above. mount wire cages  to pulley's and pick up road kill and put in the cages to raise maggots to fall into the pond to feed the fish, or to feed the chickens by falling into their area.  also PAWPAWS are pollinated by FLIES, so putting road kill high in the air near your paw paws will help them bear more fruit!  


we lived on this 1 acre+ for 3 years, 365 days a year, in a 2000 pull behind camper (it was actually illegal to do) but no one complained to the county. it is in a "dead town" in South Dakota.  even after i child was born. UNTIL I GOT A "STAPH A " infection  (probably from getting injections in my back). i spent 3 months in the hospital and had to learn to walk again, as i lost all movement in 1 leg they operated on 3 times before stitching it up, also operated on my chest 2 times   about 9 months apart. THE HOSPITAL AND THE COUNTY WOULD NOT LET US LIVE THERE ANY MORE.

since we have lots of firewood already etc... it would be nice to find someone that teaches how to build HEMP CRETE HOUSES , that might want to teach a class  at my place and build a 2 or 3 bedroom home.  ive got at least $30,000 to spend as i have to spend $20,000 on SOLAR THIS YEAR JUST TO AVOID GIVING $6,000 TO THE IRS!  we are in south east south dakota, 65 miles from the  3 major cities of sioux falls, brookings, and mitchel.   AND THE HEMP HURD BALES ARE PILED UP JUST 1/4 MILES AWAY!!!  THE CITY/TOWN OF CARTHAGE HAS A STRAW BALE BUILDING THAT HOUSES A MUSEUM.  

i have several campers and 5 tents. we will be spending $20,000 on off grid solar just to avoid taxes. sounds like a great opportunity for a hemp crete instructor. etc....
so if any hempcrete instructors are interested they should contact me.

What a weird thread! Ten year old dutch beautiful posts about insect hotels and a bunch of French speaking about our hedgehog problem and somebody from Philipines chiming in about scrap metal.... How am i supposed to moderate this? LOL
I'll just add to the confusion i guess.
I'm in France as well, In a natural park, surrounded by fields of cattle rangers not spraying much, close to a gigantic park. And hedgehogs are still here. My neighbor caught one on his video eating from his automatic cat feeding system, friendly standing next to a fox!
I saved one from a water saving catchment a couple of years back and two drowned last year in one. My neighbor cat lady has one coming over to drink and eat from her operation as well.
I heard they die of gardeners throwing snail poison around. They get infertile or something from the accumulation of gardeners. Probably the producer of the snail poison has added a secret ingredient to kill them off, to breed more snails.
People should be messier. These animals need bushes and dying heaps of debris. Everybody brings their dead debris away to the tip or burns it...It's a race of having the most tidy gardens. It's ridiculous. Kill,kill,kill is all we know how to do as humans.
Agriculture, monoculture poisons are taking away all insects. Nothing is left for the hedgehogs.
Make piles of dead tree waste on your land! Keep hedges high, plant fruit trees, be a Permie. The hedgehogs will come.

Hugo Morvan wrote:What a weird thread! Ten year old dutch beautiful posts about insect hotels and a bunch of French speaking about our hedgehog problem and somebody from Philipines chiming in about scrap metal.... How am i supposed to moderate this? LOL
I'll just add to the confusion i guess.
I'm in France as well, In a natural park, surrounded by fields of cattle rangers not spraying much, close to a gigantic park. And hedgehogs are still here. My neighbor caught one on his video eating from his automatic cat feeding system, friendly standing next to a fox!
I saved one from a water saving catchment a couple of years back and two drowned last year in one. My neighbor cat lady has one coming over to drink and eat from her operation as well.
I heard they die of gardeners throwing snail poison around. They get infertile or something from the accumulation of gardeners. Probably the producer of the snail poison has added a secret ingredient to kill them off, to breed more snails.
People should be messier. These animals need bushes and dying heaps of debris. Everybody brings their dead debris away to the tip or burns it...It's a race of having the most tidy gardens. It's ridiculous. Kill,kill,kill is all we know how to do as humans.
Agriculture, monoculture poisons are taking away all insects. Nothing is left for the hedgehogs.
Make piles of dead tree waste on your land! Keep hedges high, plant fruit trees, be a Permie. The hedgehogs will come.

I'm sorry that the hedgehog situation seems off topic, but insects and hedgehogs seem related to me. Thank you for letting me know that there are still hedgehogs somewhere in France. It gives me hope. I have LPO flower mixtures for birds and butterflies, but I don't actually have insect hotels. If there are hedgehogs around, perhaps building a few cities for insects will help if I can manage to get back some hedgehogs. I have piles of wood and "houses" for hedgehogs all over. Is that enough. We also are restoring two hedges on our land, the hedges on the outer perimeter were always there. Are stacks of wood enough to be cities for insects?

Well the off topic happened. It's a shame people will not find it in future if we're done speaking. Try to make new topics folks!
It's outrageous it has come this far in such a forest rich country as France that the hedgehog is on it's way out. Personally i do not believe in insect hotels as such. It concentrates the larvae whereas it used to be difficult for robberinsects to find larvae, if they're concentrated they can just go and lay eggs in one after the other. I've heard that leaving stalks stand and leaving debris in differing spots is good...
I was in south France and there was a great initiative to help insects. A collective of beekeeepers had taken it upon them to increase biodiversity in farmers hedges. They mad contarcts with eco friendly farmers they contacted to plant trees in their hedges. Paid for by people of the publuic farmers could chose 90 differing tree species. The only obligation the farmer has is sign a contract noit to cut the trim or cut the tree.
I had asked why not make a forest full of diverse trees. The man of the collective replied that hedges go for miles and miles and that insects just need a little refuge here and there to suck specific flower and if diversity is there differing insects can increase. If all is in one place, that is good, but spreading it out over so many miles brings insects further with something to nibble on or chew everywhere. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Alln these insects will make that the farmer has a robber insect handy at times when plagues strike so it keeps them down as an extra bonus.
We can make this world so much better when good initiatives are finding following up. When we do this with farmers together!