Mason Bees?

Brent Dowell

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So this year we are going to give mason bees a shot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_bee

Lot lower maintenance than honey bees, and should be kind of fun to watch.

But I needed to make some houses for them. The starter pack we got had these little reed tubes so I made a little box for some of those.

Then I made some that I lined with parchement paper to make harvesting them easier.

Then I figured I needed something to put all those in, so I made this 'house' that I'll attach to the side of the shed.

So let this bee a lesson to you of what poor planning, poor materials, and substandard execution will get you!

But I don't think the bees will mind.

They supposedly can use a little bit of an over hang to help keep the wind off them. Like we ever have any days in the spring or summer without wind....

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"harvesting" :huh:

They have a very short life span. They hatch, do a bunch of pollinating, then lay their eggs in those little tubes. You can take those tubes out after they are done, put them in the fridge for the winter, then let them out the following spring to go about their business again. Very interesting little bugs...
 
Very interesting, as bees always are. Are you doing this for the fun of it or do you need the bees for pollinating. The houses described in the section (link) are cool. Be easier to keep clean and harvest the cocoons from.
 
Very interesting, as bees always are. Are you doing this for the fun of it or do you need the bees for pollinating. The houses described in the section (link) are cool. Be easier to keep clean and harvest the cocoons from.

I'd have to say both. Sharon and I are pretty avid gardeners and enjoy growing things. Having some extra pollinators is always helpful.

I could see doing honey bees someday, but I'm not ready for that kind of additional work at this point.

We do have some natural bees around here, and I'm not sure what kind they are. I suspect they are a leaf cutter variety. They have very similar behavior to the mason bees.

We do have a few fruit trees, but with the weather we have here it's a hit or miss proposition if we get any fruit ever. We frequently get killing frosts in the late springtime that can make you do a complete do-over gardening wise.
 
Interesting, sounds like a lot less work than honey bees too. With as many flowers as we have around the yard, we typically don't have a problem attracting pollinators though. So do you order some from somewhere? Or are there some around your area?
 
We ordered some. 150 of them. They came in their cocoons in a little plastic cup. Once we get some plans flowering out here, we'll let them loose. Basically put them in a little box with a 5/16" hole in it out by the homes I've prepared.

That should be it maintenance wise until fall. The natural reeds can just be removed from the box. The other ones I'll take off the house, remove the backs, and then I'll have these nice little parchment paper tubs of bee cocoons, if all goes well.

Into the beer cooler they'll go until the following year. They should be able to pack about 7-8 cocoons in each of the tubes.
 
I was told that around my area, the mason bees will find you so no need to purchase.:huh: I have a couple wood block ones made, but haven't put them out yet.
 
Brent hows the greenhouse going and the heat storage in that water. Would you think about releasing them into the greenhouse they could do their thing in there for veg. I had never heard of them before thanks for the education. Nature is amazing. And to think you can order these things for delivery by mail just blows my mind what else in the way of insects can one order like this...
 
I was told that around my area, the mason bees will find you so no need to purchase.:huh: I have a couple wood block ones made, but haven't put them out yet.

This trick of lining the holes with parchment is supposed to be healthier for the bees and makes it easier to pull them out for the winter. If you don't harvest them, the wood peckers seem to enjoy picking them out of the blocks.

Brent hows the greenhouse going and the heat storage in that water. Would you think about releasing them into the greenhouse they could do their thing in there for veg. I had never heard of them before thanks for the education. Nature is amazing. And to think you can order these things for delivery by mail just blows my mind what else in the way of insects can one order like this...

There are quite a few beneficial insects you can order. http://www.gardensalive.com/good-bugs/c/452/

In theory, you can even order baby chicks to be delivered...
 
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There are quite a few beneficial insects you can order. http://www.gardensalive.com/good-bugs/c/452/

In theory, you can even order baby chicks to be delivered...

We've ordered both Lady bugs and Lacewings successfully. It helps to have a lot of other food around for them as well or they tend to disband into the wilderness (ladybugs like marigolds so I would plant a whole lot of those around the edge of the garden.. dill and fennel as well - which cross breeds into a less appetizing dinnel, still makes the good bugs happy). I've seen people sell preying mantis as well, but I don't understand that as they are pretty territorial so you probably already have about as many as you're going to get if you've set things up to be good bug happy.

I think my favorite beneficials from a "cool bug" perspective are probably lacewings and then the tiny little predatory wasps. Mason bees would be a close third though (maybe tied with lady bugs).

Ordering chicks is sort of weird because they ship them via USPS and you get a call to come down and pickup your chickens from the post office. Out of the last batch of 25 (27 shipped) we lost one on arrival and one the next day (but the rest did well. You can also order fertilized eggs but imho they are even harder to get good survival rates out of if you aren't well setup for it (you have to turn the eggs multiple times a day, they're ridiculously temperature sensitive, etc.. there are "brooders" you can buy/make to do this but .. yeah..).
 
dRilliNg wAs comPletely RaNdom, I assure you!

No real rhyme or reason. I marked out the holes on a piece of cardboard, put that on top of each 4x4 end, marked the position. I then used the drill press to drill part way through and a long bit in a hand drill the rest of the way. The drill bits tended to wander a bit. I bet some of those are turned around backwards. I.e. the bottoms are out front instead. I'm just hoping the bees aren't picky!:rofl:
 
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