Niagara “bee hotel”

[projekktor id=’24568′]

The Niagara Parks Commission has teamed up with the Niagara Catholic District School Board to help bolster the native bee population. It’s called the Bee Hotel. It stretches over 10 feet high and over 10 feet wide. Students from Saint Michael and Saint Paul Catholic High School worked with students from the School of Horticulture to build it. The structure was installed Monday morning in the Legacy Prairie Garden in Niagara Falls.

The hotel features tiny cavities, which are actually bamboo stems, to provide shelter for solitary bees. Unlike honey bees, which are not native to North America, solitary bees do not form hives or large colonies.

The Bee Hotel features a part of Niagara Falls history. The bee itself is made up of an oak tree that is estimated to be between 200 and 500 years old. The rotting tree fell over last year, but officials managed to repurpose some of the wood for this project.