I could wax poetic about the ethical and economic benefits of buying from local/small artisans, but what’s more important is that many cheap bee hotels you can find on the internet are actually not great for the bees!
Solitary bees are actually very particular about the size of the holes they will use, and most commercial hotels are built for human aesthetics, not for the bees. If the hole diameter is wrong, bees won’t use the hotels at all, or they will be used by wasps (not necessarily bad, but not the point of the hotel). If the holes are too deep the back layer of larvae might die before emerging, and if they are too shallow it will skew the gender ratio of the larvae to produce too few females.
{When a female lays eggs, she places females in the back, and one male at the front. In the bee world, males are more expendable. If a bird or wasp invades the tunnel, it will mostly likely only kill the male larvae in front.}
Additionally, the cheap hotels are often made, coated, and painted, with chemicals that can be harmful to bees, where as mine are just natural wood and plant stems.

There’s a lot to consider when placing your bee hotel!

• Sun Level - You want to place these hotels where they will get some sun. Too much shade and wasps will move in. However you don’t really want to roast the bee larvae in the dead of the summer either. So, generally a spot that is facing a direction where the front of the hotel gets 75% sun is good. And if you can get that 75% in the morning rather than afternoon, even better. Sun first thing in the morning helps warm up those bees so they get more daytime foraging in. If you are in a hotter climate, more shade is better, and in cooler climates you can go up to full sun.

• Which Side of the Road? - It seems like a no brainer, but I’ve seen people place their bee hotels near the road and facing it so the bees have to fly across the road each time they build a pollen ball. That’s very dangerous for the bees; they’re likely to end up killed on a windshield. So place your bee hotel away from the road, on whichever side is nearest to their food source, and either facing away or to the side of the road.

• Wind - If you are in an area that gets a lot of wind, its best to place the hotel somewhere out of the full wind. Near wind-break trees, around the corner of your house/barn, or on a post amongst some bushy plants is great.

• Predation - The two main predators of Bee Hotels are ants and birds. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do about either of these, but in a perfect world you would protect the hotel from both. Ants won’t often bother a bee hotel that is 3 ft above the ground, especially one mounted on a smooth metal post. If you don’t have the tools to mount it to metal (the brackets are $$$) a wooden post is second best. If you can’t do a post at all and are hanging it on a wall, make sure its at least 3 ft up from the ground. Birds are trickier. If you live in an area with lots of woods and great bird habitat, I wouldn’t worry about the hotel too much if you are placing it near a highly trafficked area like your house. If bird habitat is poor and you know you have lots of hungry insect-eating birds, you may consider adding hardwire cloth to the front face of the hotel. In poor habitat areas its even more important to place your hotel near to a busy spot on your property. Bees won’t mind you coming and going, but birds will and may decide the hotel isn’t worth the risk.

TLDR: In 75% Sun, far away from the road and wind, and on a post or wall 3ft above the ground. You may not have a spot with all this, but that’s ok, just do your best!

This is the part that discourages many from buying bee hotels, and I urge you to consider whether or not you will actually take the time to keep up with them before installing one.

As with any animal, humans included, the closer they live to each other the more likely they are to spread disease. In a bee hotel, you are clustering bees closer than they would be in the wild (which they actually like and helps them hatch more bees), but puts them at greater risk for a disease called Chalky Brood. Chalky Brood is a serious fungal killer of bees. In the natural world solitary bees would be pretty far apart and using primarily plant stems which break down after a year. So a fungal disease like Chalky Brood has trouble spreading beyond a single infected nest and remaining until the next year. But in Bee Hotels, all the bees are packed close, and the tunnels get reused year after year. This is perfect for the fungal spores to spread between tunnels and overwinter to kill next years bees too.

It’s scary to think that in trying to help the bees you could end up attracting and then killing many hundreds of them through neglecting the hotel.

The best thing to do is in the spring once you notice them emerging, to look carefully for signs of larvae killed by chalky brood. If you notice any, burn any piece you find and replace it with a new one. Soak the other wood pieces in a mild bleach or vinegar solution for a day and allow them to fully dry before putting them back out. Dried stems may not last more than a year anyways, but if you find chalky brood discard all of them and replace. Same with the cardboard tubes. If you live near someone who manages a lot of honeybees you will be at a higher risk of getting Chalky Brood in your hotel, and should as a rule replace all stems and cardboard tubes yearly, and either disinfect all wood pieces yearly or replace them every other year. Online you can get paper inserts for cardboard tubes that can be replaced yearly, saving you from having to buy new tubes. This is a nice cost saving option, though I personally find inserting the papers a bit tedious.

Feel free to email photos if you suspect chalky brood, and I can look at it and let you know.

If this seems like a lot, you may not be a good candidate for a large hotel, and should think about getting only a small one. I have designs for people who want simple low maintenance hotels, and there’s no shame in admitting you need that. If the bees are safer that’s what matters.