It's much cheaper and more satisfying to build your own insect hotel

ECOLOGY is a relatively modern science, writes Dick Warner

The meaning we attach to the word today is less than a century old and that meaning is still evolving. One result of this has been the appearance in supermarkets and garden centres of “insect hotels”.

The idea is that you buy one, put it in your garden and it provides a habitat for beneficial insects where they can shelter, breed or hibernate. The insects then benefit the ecology of the garden — predatory and parasitic ones control pests and the ones that eat nectar help pollinate plants. It’s a good idea. There is plenty of scientific evidence demonstrating that the numbers of beneficial insects, particularly pollinating ones, are declining all around the world, including Ireland. It’s also quite clear that the reason for this is that we’ve poisoned them with pesticides and destroyed much of their natural habitat.