Mid-Atlantic Gardening: MASON BEES, 1 by docgipe

docgipe wrote:











Mason bees are little gentle insects you rarely see and hardly ever find where they live.
That being said they are even better polinators than the honey bee. Their active life cycle is that they come out of hiding, mate, polinate, store food and use mud to cap both ends of their eggs and resultant larva and insect that will appear at the perfect time the following year. Except for a relatively short period of time they spend the rest of the year in the little hive they create using mud...thus their names Mason Bees. Any shake shingled house is likely allready their home. They like to build their homes in a slot or tube slightly larger than a soda straw.

Their sexual behavior is intresting. When a female emerges she falls to the ground and is immediately serviced by a male. Then she goes about the job of gathering food while polinating allmost any flower or blooming plant. This she takes back to a new open slot or tube and proceeds to lay eggs, place food and mud it in the amount the next years larva need to develop into bees. A coffee can full of the proper sized tubes and tube liners will enable her to place thousands of eggs and food. Her work being done and when food runs out she dies. There is no queen. All females in an area work in the same housing slots or available tubes. What do the males do. Don't know but their first task must not be to bad. They just hang around untill the little ladies hit the ground. I guess they have sex and be about the job of eating to survive and possibly bragging with each other as to how busy they were the past morning.

There are several sites devoted to their development and promotion. Give our friend Google a chance to introduce you to them. Use two words...Mason Bee A family owned firm in Washington or Oregon developed the business with supplies to support bee keepers and the need for the small hive parts. They also ship start up bees in the tubes you will find in their hives.

Unlike honey bees Mason Bees are very gentle. Very rarely sting. It takes good eyes and patience to even see them. My hive is right beside my back door facing East to catch the AM sun.

The pix is my hive. It is about the size of a coffee can. Your only job is to add new slieves for next years femails to fill. These are mud capped eggs and food for next years hatch.