10 tiny hotels you have to see to bee-lieve

It’s been a little less than a year since a group of Studio Art students placed a series of tiny bee habitats on the west side of campus.

Since then, members of the area’s native bee community have taken up residence in the stylish structures, dubbed “bee hotels.”

Native bees are important pollinators for many crops that humans rely on for food.

The hotels were designed and built by students in Judy Major-Girardin’s Environmentally Responsible Studio Art class in response to worryingly high winter mortality rates for bees in Ontario over the last number of years.

Bee populations in North America have been negatively impacted by a combination of declining nutrition, mites, disease and pesticide use.

Below: Students put together bee hotels last year as part of their course in environmentally-friendly art:

Some of the “bee hotels,” located on the west side of campus: