The Dutch city of Utrecht has added a 28 metre-high bee hotel to its roster of bee-friendly environments in a bid to help protect the bees.

This summer a large hotel for bees and other insects was built around a billboard tower along the A2 motorway.  

The 28 metre-high bee hotel consists of over 200 nesting boxes for wild bees and butterflies. Wild bees look for pollen and nectar within 200 metres of their nesting site, and so the area was planted with a 7,000 m2 field of wildflowers, as well as sand and hills for bees that nest in the ground.

Utrecht has over 100 species of bees, including rare species. While bee populations have been in decline in the Netherlands, the bee hotel and wildflower meadow aims to help protect the bees.

The City of Utrecht municipality asked organisations to develop a plan for a new billboard tower. The tower needed to be sustainable and energy efficient.

Ocean Outdoor Nederland came up with the idea of installing a large bee hotel around the tower, which is made of stainless steel. Honey Highway helped create the field of wildflowers around the hotel, while the nesting boxes were built by unemployed locals.

It follows the greening of more than 300 bus stops into plant havens for bees in the city of Utrecht last summer.

Rosa Medea is Life & Soul Magazine’s Chief. She writes about lifestyle including sustainable and green living.