Home presentations are organized for insects in Lahti: Olivia, 5, decorated a nest where insects can make babies

Preschoolers built artificial nests for pollinating insects. Vötökö’s apartments are also presented to the public. Human-made insect habitats are needed because the nesting places of pollinators have decreased.

Awareness of the importance of pollinating insects to nature can be increased in many ways. In Lahti, the city’s Nature School Kaisla organized workshops for preschoolers, where they made insect hotels.

The public can get to know the models of insect habitats in Launee family park in Lahti. The nests are displayed and at the same time information about pollinating insects is shared.

Three children dressed in blue attention vests and an adult in a light T-shirt and cap. In front of the group, an insect hotel resembling a birdhouse attached to a fence. — Ville Rantanen, Olivia Kalanen and Sini Kuoppala attached the insect hotel together with environmental educator Jenni Jelkänen.

The children decorated the insect hotel

When the preschoolers got down to business, the walls of the insects’ habitats were ready, but the interior was missing. Among other things, lake reed, which was obtained from the mowing of Lake Vesijärvi in the winter, had been brought as decoration material.

The task of the nature school students was to cut the long lake reeds into a suitable length, and place them in good places in the insects’ hotel rooms.

– I make similar places for insects where they can make babies.

The 5-year-old hopes that insects, which are good for nature, would find their way into the nests. He has seen the most insects while visiting the cottage.

– At least I’ve seen wasps and I know that a wasp stings, Olivia Kalanen says.

He advises placing the insect hotels somewhere high up, so that the insects can be in peace.

A little girl with glasses, Olivia Kalanen, looks at the camera. In front, on the outdoor table, the girl has scissors and a piece of lake reed in her hand. — Olivia Kalanen cuts lake reeds to the appropriate size for the decoration of the insect hotel.

Ladybug’s room upstairs

In the opinion of a preschooler from the Kaislat group of Lähti daycare center, the best thing about building insect hotels was cutting lake reeds. He arranges them in a structure modeled after the Lahti radio mast.

Rantanen decorates the upper floor of the hotel with lake reeds, because he thinks it would be the best place for a ladybug to live there.

– If it wants to see the scenery.

The woman (crossbreeder Jenni Jelkänen) is on her knees at the table. He has a chopped lake reed in his hands, a white bucket in front, a structure resembling a radio mast in the background.. On the table are two insect hotels that look like birdhouses. — The walls and roof of insect hotels are made of wood. Lake reeds for filling were obtained from Vesijärvi’s winter meadows. Jenni Jelkänen’s background is a large insect hotel modeled after a radio mast.

Nests in their placement places in the spring

– These hotels are especially for recluse bees and wasps, but of course other stingers and insects may also live there.

If you want to build a house for insects in your own yard, you can take a model of the insect dwellings on display in the Launee family park in Lahti.

– You can build an insect hotel in, for example, a milk can, encourages environmental educator Jenni Jelkänen.

The nests on display in the family park are installed in their final locations in the spring, when their insect inhabitants begin their annual cycle.