GUESTS will be making flying visits to a new chain of "hotels" being opened across the region in the near future.

However, the visitors will not be paying guests - but swarms of bees searching for homes.

As part of its Gardening for Wildlife project, launched today, Cramlington Organisation of Nature and the Environment (Cone) is encouraging home builders and buyers to help increase bio-diversity on and around houses.

"bee hotels" are being built on to new houses in an effort to give the insects a place to live, with the House Builders' Federation's (HBF) North-East branch and seven builders signing up to the scheme.

Susan Latimer, chairman of the HBF northern marketing group, said yesterday: "With older properties, mason bees could easily burrow into mortar to nest.

"However, modern building materials have much harder mortar so the 'bee-hotels' that we will be putting up on some of our homes will provide excellent substitutes for bees to rear their young."

Other ideas being taken on by those involved in the scheme include such things as ponds, bird boxes and hedgehog homes.

Mick Sharpe, landscape architect for Cone, said the "hotels" were placed on south or west-facing walls, and successive generations of nests could live there for years.

He has had a nest on his home for four years and said they were absolutely no harm at all to the householder.

The hotels recreate the natural environment the mason bees would live in, such as burrows in cliff faces.

Project coordinator Phil Castiaux said: "Whether you live in a traditional family home or an apartment with a balcony, there is much you can do to attract wildlife.

"Even containers and pots, if planted with the right flowers and shrubs, can become miniature havens that will contribute greatly to local bio-diversity.