Manchester Metropolitan University - Insect Hotel Project

Over the course of the year, a number of community and environmental projects have come to fruition at Birley Campus.

A joint Insect hotel project is well underway between Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), Hulme Community Garden Centre and local schools. We have been working with teachers and primary children from two schools in Hulme to create the insect hotel.

We set the schools a challenge to help build the insect hotel - each school was provided with modules constructed from wooden pallets to fill with a variety of materials. Hulme Garden Centre constructed the Insect Hotel, with help from MMU students. Next year, we hope to invite the local schools to Campus, and engage them in an interpretation board project specifically of the Insect Hotel.

The bug hotel is made from 100% up-cycled and foraged materials - consisting of multiple levels made from old wooden pallets and filled with a mixture of materials - like straw, pinecones, twigs, leafs, bark, old clay pots and bricks.

An insect hotel will provide shelter and warmth for many types of insects and provide an ideal nesting habitat over the cold winter months. Warmer weather means that many of the insect occupants vacate the hotel, which will be extremely beneficial for a range of plants and trees on Campus and in the surrounding areas - for pollination and pest predation.

Locating the insect hotel close to the new orchard will be beneficial for the fruit trees. Encouraging earwigs to reside in the hotel means that they will eat greenflies, which can be a nuisance to fruit trees.