This weekend: check your bee hotel

Bee hotels are a great option if you want to provide nesting habitats for solitary bees but don't have lots of dead wood or hollow stems in the garden, which they naturally nest in.

There are many different types of bee hotel, but the best ones are sturdy, easy to clean or have removable tubes, and have tubes ranging in diameter from 2mm to 10mm. Some of the best bee hotels are the ones you make yourself – simply make a box at least 16cm deep, with a sturdy back on it so you can fix it to a wall or fence. Fill it with dried stems from your garden, including alliums, sunflowers, figwort, bramble, teasel, fennel and elderberry. You can then replace these every year so the bees have fresh habitat to nest in.

In winter, it's a good idea to keep your bee hotel in a shed or garage where it can remain cool but protected from predators, such as birds. If you have done this, now's the time to take it out of storage and put it back up, ready for red mason bees, which typically start nesting from April. If you haven't, don't worry, but take it down and give it the once-over anyway:

• Is it free from cobwebs?
• Are there any splinters that might snag a bee's wing?
• Do the nest tubes need replacing?

Remove cobwebs, sand down any snags and replace removable tubes with new dried stems from the garden. Don't throw out the old ones though as this year's bees will still be sleeping in them. Instead, tie these together and store somewhere cool and dry, such as an open porch, where the bees can wake up and fly off but not return to nest.

Then, simply put your bee hotel back up at head height in a south- or east-facing spot – whichever gets the most sun in the morning. Fix the hotel securely to the wall so it doesn't get blown about by wind. The bees won't be able to resist.

Bee hotel looking a bit worse for wear? Follow our guide to making your own bee hotel.

Tips for success

• In a dry spring, leave a dish of mud near your bee hotel so red mason bees can use it to make their nests.
• To attract leafcutter bees, which nest in summer, ensure you have plenty of flowering plants like sweet peas, ox-eye daisy and greater knapweed nearby, and grow floppy-leaved roses so they can build their leafy cigar-like nests.
• Take your bee hotel down in autumn and store it in a cool, dry spot where it's protected from predators and less likely to develop fungal diseases. But don't forget to put it back out again in spring.