Images: students offer bees shelter

The project is called BeeGrateful and is an Enactus start-up. Enactus is an organisation that allows students to become acquainted with social entrepreneurship. The idea is simple yet unique, says masters’ student Food Digestion and Health Zoe van Helvoirt (22), who is involved in the BeeGrateful project. ‘We produce insect hotels and attach them to lamp posts in Wageningen centre.’

The students previously developed Bee&Bees: bee hotels consumers could place in their garden. Why switch to lamp posts? Van Helvoirt: ‘Gardens often provide natural spots where bees find shelter. In cities, however, these are lacking. Flowerpots attached to lamp posts gave us this idea. If flowerpots can be attached, why not insect hotels?’ Perhaps because of the light of the streetlamps? ‘We place the hotels halfway up the posts and expect that the small openings for the insects will be obscured by the wood.’

Creating shelter

Wageningen municipality assisted the students with funding and by making the lamp posts available. The locations were selected in collaboration with urban ecologist Taric Schrader. Schrader: ‘The locations offer sufficient foraging opportunities -enabling insects to find food- but few sheltering options. The lamp posts we chose always have some green near them and are located close to the city canals, which are oases of green.’ Schrader, a WUR-alumnus, is enthusiastic about the project. ‘When people see the bee hotels, they may consider how they can contribute to more biodiversity. That is the greatest added value.’

The bee hotels were hung on ten lamp posts on Friday, 16 April. The hotels were designed and produced in collaboration with local woodworker Hans Wisselink from Renkum. Students will study how the bee hotels can best be monitored and what follow-up steps are needed.

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