How to Make & Site a Bee House (UK Guide)

A UK bee house is one of the few wildlife projects you can build in an afternoon and have occupied within weeks. The trick is in the detail: hole size, smooth bores, the way it faces, and whether you ever clean it. Get those right and you raise dozens of red mason bees a year. Get them wrong and you build a parasite trap.

After 6 seasons of running two bee houses at Staffordshire, the lessons are clear. Small and clean beats big and neglected. Siting matters more than the build. The bees that move in never sting you.

Which Bees Actually Use a Bee House

Bee houses are for solitary bees, not honeybees or bumblebees. Two species do nearly all the work in a UK garden.

The red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) is the main resident. It is a stocky, ginger-brown bee active from late March to June. The female fills each tube with pollen, lays an egg, and seals the cell with mud. She works alone, with no queen and no colony.

The leafcutter bees (Megachile species) arrive later, from June into August. They line their cells with neat discs cut from rose and shrub leaves. The semi-circular notches in your rose foliage are their signature, and the plant is unharmed.

Both are solitary. That word matters. There is no hive to defend, so there is no swarming and almost no stinging. A male red mason bee cannot sting at all. The females can, but only if you squash one, and the sting barely registers. I have worked inches from a busy bee house for years and never been stung.

They are also superb pollinators. A single red mason bee does the pollination work of many honeybees, because she carries dry pollen on her belly and visits flowers fast and untidily. For a fruit garden, they are worth far more than their size suggests. The solitary bees garden guide covers the wider species you can support beyond a bee house.

A female red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) at a tube entrance in a Staffordshire suburban garden in late April. She carries pollen dry on her belly. This single bee out-pollinates many honeybees in a fruit garden.

How to Build a Bee House From a Hardwood Block

The most durable bee house is a single drilled block of untreated hardwood. It lasts years and you can scrub it clean.

Start with seasoned, untreated hardwood: oak, beech or ash, at least 18cm deep. Never use treated, painted or pressure-preserved timber, because the chemicals harm the larvae. Avoid soft, resinous softwood too; it splinters as it dries and the bees reject it.

Drill a mix of 6mm and 8mm holes, the two sizes solitary bees use most. Make them about 15cm deep, spaced 15-20mm apart. Importantly, do not drill all the way through. The back of every hole must be sealed, so the bees have a dark dead-end to nest against. Keep the bores dead horizontal, or angled very slightly upward, so rain drains out rather than pooling inside.

Then smooth every bore. Run a round file or rolled sandpaper through each hole to strip out splinters. This step is the one most people skip and it is the one that decides occupancy. Solitary bees will not nest in a rough tunnel, because the splinters tear their wings as they back in and out.

Drilling an untreated beech block on the workbench at my Staffordshire allotment. A mix of 6mm and 8mm bits, 15cm deep, never drilled through. The sealed back gives each bee a dark dead-end to nest against.

Building a Bundle From Bamboo or Reed Tubes

If you would rather not drill, bundle hollow stems instead. Bamboo canes, reed, teasel or cardboard tubes all work, and a bundle is quick to make.

Cut each stem to about 15cm, sawing just behind a node so the back end stays sealed. Aim for inner diameters in the 4-10mm range, with a mix of sizes to suit different species. Pack the tubes tightly into an open-ended tin, length of drainpipe or timber frame, cut ends facing forward. Sand any sharp or split rims smooth.

One material to avoid entirely: plastic tubes. They look tidy but they sweat. Condensation builds inside the smooth plastic, mould grows, and the developing larvae rot. Glass test tubes have the same fault. Natural stems and cardboard breathe, so the nests stay dry.

The real advantage of a bundle over a solid block is cleaning. Individual tubes can be lifted out and replaced. That single feature, removable tubes, is the most important design rule of all, and I will come back to it.

Packing bamboo and reed tubes into a tin at my Staffordshire cottage garden. Each stem cut at 15cm just behind a node, sealed back end, ends sanded smooth. Removable tubes make autumn cleaning possible.

The Design Rules That Actually Matter

Most failed bee houses fail on the same handful of details. Get these right and the rest is forgiving.

Two rules carry the most weight. First, removable or replaceable tubes are essential, because a house you cannot clean becomes a disease trap. Second, add a roof with a real overhang. A 4-5cm sloping roof keeps rain off the entrance face, and a dry face means no mould. A bee house that gets wet inside is finished within a season.

Where to Site a Bee House for Maximum Use

Siting matters more than the build. The same house empty on a shaded north wall fills up fast on a sunny south one.

Face it south or south-east, so it catches the full morning sun. Solitary bees are cold-blooded and need to warm up early to fly, so the morning warmth gets them working sooner each day. Mount it 1-1.5m off the ground, and fix it firm so it cannot swing. A house that sways in the wind unsettles the bees and they leave.

Keep it sheltered from driving rain and the prevailing south-westerly. Tuck it under an eave or a fence overhang if you can. Site it near flowers, because the bees forage close to home. And for red mason bees, leave a patch of bare, damp clay or mud nearby. They build their cell walls from mud, and a dry garden with no exposed soil starves them of building material. A shallow tray of clay soil kept damp does the job.

The drilled-block house fixed to a south-east brick wall at 1.2m in my Staffordshire terraced garden. Full morning sun, screwed firm so it cannot swing, sheltered by the eave above. Flowers and a damp clay tray are a few steps away.

The Bee House Year, Month by Month

Knowing the cycle tells you when to leave the house alone and when to act. The bees fill tubes in spring and summer, the young overwinter inside, and the next generation emerges the following spring.

The filled tubes you see capped with mud in June are sealed mason bee nests. Each cap hides a row of cells, each with an egg, a ball of pollen, and a future bee. Leave them be. They are doing exactly what you built the house for.

Mud-capped tubes on the bee house in my Staffordshire courtyard in June. Each cap seals a row of cells, every cell holding an egg, a pollen store and a developing bee. Leave sealed tubes completely undisturbed.

Cleaning and Maintenance: The Step Most Guides Skip

This is the part that separates a useful bee house from a harmful one. Bee houses concentrate bees, so they concentrate the bees’ enemies too. Pollen mites, parasitic wasps and mould all build up year on year in a house that is never cleaned.

For drilled blocks and bamboo, the gold-standard method is to harvest the cocoons in autumn. Around late October, open the tubes or split paper liners, lift out the mason bee cocoons, and gently wash them to rinse off the pollen mites. Store the clean cocoons in a ventilated box in a cold shed or the fridge over winter, then release them by the cleaned house in March. It sounds fiddly, but it lifts survival rates sharply.

If that is too much, the simpler rule is to replace cardboard tubes every year and scrub drilled blocks before reuse. Either way, the tubes or bores must not carry old debris into a new season.

And the single biggest rule: do not build a giant bee hotel wall. Those impressive multi-tier hotels with hundreds of tubes look generous, but they are disease factories. The denser the nests, the faster mites and parasitic wasps spread between them. Keep your house small, around 100 holes, and clean it every year. A small clean house out-breeds a big dirty one every time.

Rinsing harvested red mason bee cocoons in late October at my Staffordshire kitchen. Washing strips off the pollen mites that otherwise overwinter with the bee. Clean cocoons go cold and dry until March release.

Common Mistakes With UK Bee Houses

Mistake 1: never cleaning it. A neglected house breeds mites and parasitic wasps. Clean or replace tubes yearly.

Mistake 2: buying a giant bee hotel. Big dense walls concentrate disease. Keep it small, around 100 holes.

Mistake 3: using plastic tubes. They sweat, grow mould and rot the larvae. Use wood, bamboo, reed or card.

Mistake 4: rough, splintered bores. Bees reject them. Smooth every hole before mounting.

Mistake 5: a shaded or swinging site. Cold or unstable houses stay empty. South-facing, firm, full morning sun.

Mistake 6: no mud nearby. Mason bees need wet clay for cell walls. Keep a damp clay patch within reach.

To round out a bee-friendly garden, the autumn-flowering plants for bees guide keeps forage going late, and the bumble bee species guide covers the colony bees that nest in the ground instead.

Why We Recommend a Small, Cleaned Bee House Over a Big Bee Hotel

Why we recommend a small, cleaned bee house for UK gardens: Across 6 seasons at Staffordshire, the small drilled-block house cleaned every autumn out-produced the larger bundle every time. A house of roughly 100 holes, drilled at 6mm and 8mm, sited south-east at 1.2m in full morning sun, fills with red mason bees from late March and leafcutters from June. The yearly clean, harvesting and washing cocoons or replacing tubes, keeps pollen mites and parasitic wasps from building up. Pair it with flowers, a damp clay patch for nest mud, and shelter from rain. The big multi-tier bee hotels sold in garden centres look generous but concentrate disease and rarely fill well. Small, clean and well sited beats big and neglected for raising real numbers of bees.

For the wider garden, a wildlife log pile shelters the beetles and other insects that share the patch, and a wildlife pond build gives bees and birds a drinking source through summer.

Frequently asked questions

What bees use a bee house in the UK?

Solitary bees, mainly red mason bees and leafcutter bees. These bees nest alone in tubes, not colonies. They are non-aggressive, rarely sting and never swarm. Honeybees and bumblebees do not use bee houses; they nest elsewhere.

Which way should a bee house face?

South or south-east, in full morning sun. Solitary bees need warmth early in the day to fly. Fix it 1-1.5m off the ground, firm and not swinging, sheltered from rain and prevailing wind. Site it near flowers and bare clay or mud.

What size holes does a bee house need?

Holes between 4mm and 10mm wide, with 6mm and 8mm the most used. Drill them about 15cm deep, smooth-bored with no splinters, and sealed at the back. Mixed sizes attract more species. Avoid holes wider than 10mm, which mostly go unused.

Do you need to clean a bee house?

Yes, every year, or it breeds mites, mould and parasitic wasps. Use removable tubes or a block that opens. Harvest mason bee cocoons in autumn, clean off the mites, and store them cold. Replace cardboard tubes yearly. Never leave it uncleaned.

Are bee houses good or bad for bees?

Good, if kept small and cleaned each year. A neglected bee hotel does more harm than good. It concentrates bees, so it concentrates their parasites and diseases too. Pair a small, clean house with flowers and a patch of bare mud for the best result.

An oversized “bee hotel” wall in a shaded corner, the kind to avoid. Hundreds of densely packed tubes, never cleaned, with mould and old debris visible. Dense nests spread mites and parasitic wasps faster than the bees can breed.

Now plan the wider wildlife garden

A bee house is one piece of a bee-friendly garden. The Wildlife Trusts have good background on supporting solitary bees and other pollinators, and Buglife covers the invertebrate side in depth. To go further at home, the solitary bees garden guide widens the species you can help, while attracting birds to the garden and keeping track of the good and bad garden bugs round out a garden that works with nature rather than against it. If a bee house gives you the bug, our beekeeping for beginners guide covers the honeybee step up.