“Insects, worms, and other small animals that carry out vital functions for life on earth have declined by 45 percent average over 35 years, threatening human, water quality and food supplies”
-Steve Connor, “Vital invertebrates decline 45 percent, study finds,” independent.co.uk, July 2014
When I first heard about insect motels, it was during my 3D Concepts studio class, we were asked to read an article explaining the insect shortage and how people were creating these motels for the bugs. Bees, butterflies, beetles and other small insects use the motels as a place of shelter and mating. Individually we were asked to create our own insect motels to be placed on trails all around Wisconsin to help increase the insect population. I choose to focus on creating a space for various small insects and used natural plant mater and raw wood to construct my motel.
Different insects need specific living spaces, for example solitary bees need small holes no deeper then 3 inches. Butterflies need enclosed spaces with long slits through the wood so they can come and go with their large wings. Different types of small insects such as lacewing need dry leaves and twigs. An interesting fact about solitary bees; they can use insect motels as safe, permanent, bee hives. Insect motels should be places within nature, and around other plants and flowers to make pollinating easier.
Initially I had ideas of creating a rather detailed and specific design for the appearance on my insect motel. I planned to create hexagon shapes and stuff them with dry leaves and twigs for the small insects. I included tall boxes for butterflies and had intended for my motel to rest on the ground. The images below are pictures of initial sketches and process.
As apart of building a three-dimensional structure, there is a lot of planning that goes into the process. I created a digital design of my intended motel through the program Google Sketch-up; this helped my visualized and gather all the parts needed in order to create my motel. My supplies included planned wood, stapes and wood glue to attach my parts together, chicken wire to place over my openings to keep unwanted animals and insects out. I also collected dry leaves and plant matter, logs and small twigs. I tried to find specific warped wood that would work as a roof over my motel as well.
As I worked through my process, I realized I was above my head with my design, so I had to revise my initial sketches and plans and create something more possible for the time and skill sets I had. I didn’t realize prior to beginning how much wood my piece would actually need, and so I downsized my motel to three diamond shapes instead of hexagons and attached them to a post instead of having it rest on the ground. I also changed the insects I planned to house in my motel and just focused on small insects specifically. I would of loved to have seen my initial ideas come to life but I understand this was a more practical and functional piece after making my revisions.
As a part of creating an insect motel, you need to keep in mind the on going maintenance of the materials and structure you choose to work with. The plant matter and materials can get old, or wet and should be replaced after some time. With that in mind I made sure to attach my chicken wire so it would easily be removed/replaced if necessary. I did this by drilling nails into the corners of my diamonds and placing the wire over the nails.