I have to admit, although I was a honey bee keeper for a couple decades, I have only recently become enamored with Mason Bees. These industrious little creatures are fun to watch and super easy to care for. I think they are my favorite beneficial garden insect.
I was fortunate enough to get my first Mason Bee house from my friend Steve. Steve has always been an “inventor extraordinaire” so I knew when I bought this little Mason Bee house, it would be engineered to perfection. I also knew that I would have the best chance at learning how to care for them. So let me share some thoughts based on my short-term experience with them
Housing
I am hearing a lot of folks say you need to get your housing in order before you get your bees. This makes perfect sense to me and is also what I teach in regard to people bringing home any livestock. I mean, if you are bringing something home, do it a solid by being properly prepared, first. So this is why I am a bit concerned that I am seeing lots of folks using things that may harbor mites and such. The tubes that I got from Steve are lined with a little bit of paper, not unlike something you would use to blow a spit wad (don’t ask me how I know this). These can be removed and replaced to help prevent mites infecting the bees. These are much preferred over the type of house that has holes drilled in and no nesting tubes because the houses with only drilled holes tend to encourage disease and mites. The bees also won’t be likely to leave cocoons for you to harb=vest and save for next year.
Place the house in a Southern facing direction, preferably under an even, 6-7 feet off the ground. Because Brian is tall and didn’t want to walk in their flight zone, we opted to put ours on a post in the garden but out of Brian’s normal walking zone. Steve built these with little roofs so the bees’ house stay dry.
Make sure there is some mud that is heavy in clay nearby..This is what they use to seal up their tubes, development chambers when they are ready, Make sure their clay stays moist so they like it.
Foraging– Mason bees forage for about a 300 foot range so you need to be sure you have enough for them in that area. Plants with staggering bloom schedules are good. You can also consider what your neighbors have growing too. Avoid hybrid plants since they tend to produce less nectar and pollen. Open-pollinated plants are best.
Getting Bees– If you aren;t lucky enough to have a friend to share their cocoons with you then you can buy or rent cocoons. I know folks who buy thiers from Crown Bees in Seattle. I received mine in a bamboo tube that had a cap on it. The temperatures were still cold so I placed the tube in the refrigerator for a couple weeks until it got above 50 degrees. When I released them, I simply uncapped and placed under the eave of the house I got from Steve. They tend to come back to where the tube is so it was very easy. I plan to try to get a second batch to release this week since spacing them out a couple weeks will give us a longer pollination season with them.
Harvesting Cocoons– Once the Mason Bee season is over and the tunnels are capped, I will let them be until the fall. In the fall, I will slide the paper tubes out and sort the cocoons from the debris. I’ll do this in our mudroom where it is cool. This will help them stay dormant. I will only save the smooth sounded cocoons and not any that look hook shaped since they may be infected by chalk brood, a terrible fungal spore disease that also infects honey bees. I will also discard cocoons that have holes in them since parasitic wasps may have got to them.
The cocoons will go back in their bamboo tube that Steve sent them in. I’ll make sure it is clean. I’ll place the tube in the refrigerator which stays around 40 degrees and is slightly humid. 60-70% is good so I may need to spritz them with water a couple times.
Once the weather is consistently 50 degrees again, I plan to do it all over again but I hope to add more houses and have more bees.
Wash, rinse, repeat. and keep on gardening.
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