Awesome Insect Hotel in Darbnik

We want to support habitats of useful pollinators and insects in the village of Darbnik, Ararat region. We have recently created a greenhouse-classroom in the area of the only school in Dabnik where we grow edible flowers and herbs, and now we are step-by-step creating more biodiversity in the area outside the greenhouse, too.

Pollinators and bugs are important for every garden. Some insects are beneficial for pollinating the flowers of the crops, and some of them also keep detrimental insects away. Humans don’t always like bugs, we tend to kill them and keep them away from our homes.

Climate chaos is creating tough conditions for millions of species on the planet, including the insects. Moreover, as humans expand to more and more territories by building homes, farms and factories, they seize or destroy homes of many insects, too.

Our awesome project is about building an Insect Hotel together with the school children, as well as creating an about 50-100 sqm area with diverse flowers and plants in front of our greenhouse classroom which will support a variety of insects in the area.

An insect hotel gives a safe space for them to build homes and reproduce. This is especially important for the insects that do not live in colonies but are solitary, such as ladybugs, butterflies, solitary bees. Insect hotels are places where they can hibernate in wintertime.

Building and monitoring an insect hotel, as well as planting and maintaining the little garden around will be a wonderful educational activity for the kids at school. They will learn to love and appreciate the bugs. We have already held a couple of classes about biodiversity and the connection of each and every species on the planet. So this will be a really good second step of practical learning.

Funded by Nature Armenia (July 2022)