The Insect Hotel Network

You didn't think we were the only ones, did you?

Across the world, from botanical gardens to Formula One circuits, humans have been building places for insects to stay. Some are record-breakers. Some are works of art. Some are quiet corners in a London square. All of them are real, and all of them are open for business.

We mapped them. Because if you're a bee with a long commute, it helps to know where the next hotel is.

The Network

Click any node to learn more. Hover over an edge to see the distance.

The Directory

Record Holders

These are the ones that went big. Really big.

Hotel	Location	Size	Record Held
Highland Titles Bug Hotel	Duror, Scotland	199.9 m³	Current Guinness World Record (March 2022)
Warsaw Giant	Warsaw, Poland	89.37 m³	Previous record (May 2021)
St Helens School Hotel	St Helens, England	81.26 m³	Original record holder

The record-breaker chain spans 2,800 km from northwest England to the Scottish Highlands via Warsaw. Each one dethroned the last. The insects don't care about the rankings, but we find it charming.

Gardens & Parks

Quiet places where the serious conservation work happens.

Hotel	Location	What lives there
Kew Gardens Bee Tower	Richmond, London	Solitary bees, via drilled wood and hollow stems
Russell Square Bug Hotels	Bloomsbury, London	Ladybirds, lacewings, solitary bees
Jardin des Plantes	Paris, France	Documented bee populations in the 5th arrondissement
Denver Botanic Gardens	Denver, Colorado	Solitary native bees and wasps
Desert Botanical Garden	Phoenix, Arizona	Desert-adapted pollinators
Sonoma State University	Rohnert Park, California	Student-maintained, educational focus
Botanic Gardens of Sydney	Sydney, Australia	Southern hemisphere outpost
University of Agder	Kristiansand, Norway	Multiple hotels, large installation at the Riding Hall
Fletcher Wildlife Garden	Ottawa, Canada	Leaf-cutter bees and mason bees

Art & Design

Where architecture meets ecology. Some temporary, all beautiful.

Hotel	Location	Designer / Initiative
Parc Vallmora	El Masnou, Barcelona	Batlle i Roig Arquitectura (2016)
Air Bee 'n Bee	Utrecht, Netherlands	Billboard tower, 200+ hives, wildflower meadow
Please Stand By	V&A Museum, London	Marlène Huissoud, London Design Festival
Beau Rivage Palace	Lausanne, Switzerland	Switzerland Tourism "Bees & Friends"
Wild Bee Lodges	Basel, Switzerland	"Bees & Friends"
Tiny Dolder Grand	Zurich, Switzerland	Josua Glünkin, "Bees & Friends"
Villa Carona Bee Hotel	near Lugano, Switzerland	"Bees & Friends", 10,000–30,000 bees

Wildcards

Because insect hotels turn up in the most unexpected places.

Hotel	Location	The story
Buzzin Corner	Suzuka Circuit, Japan	11 hotels at Turn 2, built by four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel. Each team customised their own. Kerbs painted black and yellow.
Jozi Bee Hotel Project	Johannesburg, South Africa	347 bee hotels distributed across the city. A citizen science project by Wits University and Tutus Loco studying equitable access to pollination services.

Distances

Some selected flights across the network, as the bee flies:

From	To	Distance
The Insect Hotel	Kew Gardens	9,680 km
The Insect Hotel	Sydney	11,060 km
Kew Gardens	Russell Square	13 km
Russell Square	V&A Museum	3 km
Paris	Russell Square	340 km
Duror	Warsaw	2,360 km
St Helens	Warsaw	1,640 km
Lausanne	Basel	180 km
Basel	Zurich	85 km
Zurich	Lugano	180 km
Lugano	Lausanne	250 km
Utrecht	Warsaw	1,230 km
Suzuka	Sydney	7,820 km
Denver	Phoenix	940 km
Sonoma	Phoenix	1,050 km
Ottawa	Denver	2,850 km
The Insect Hotel	Jozi Bee Hotel Project	1,270 km
Jozi Bee Hotel Project	KZN Botanical Garden	480 km

How We Built This

Every hotel on this page is real. We verified each one against news reports, institutional websites, Guinness World Records, or published research. No human should arrive at a field to find nothing, and no insect either.

Some installations, particularly art pieces like Marlène Huissoud's Please Stand By at the V&A, may have been temporary. We've noted this where known.

If you know of an insect hotel we've missed, we'd love to hear about it. The network is always growing.