Masons vs. Honeybees
Lately, honeybee numbers are being reduced through parasitic mites and diseases that are wiping out their hives, but these ailments largely have not affected our native American bees—the Mason bee. Native Orchard Mason Bees are widespread throughout North America and have lived in America for millions of years. We call them Masons because they work with mud to build and seal their nests.
Effective Pollinators
Unlike honeybees, Mason bees are more interested in pollen than nectar. Compared to 60,000 -120,000 honeybees, it takes only 250-750 Orchard Mason bees to pollinate an acre of apples. Mason bees do a great job pollinating orchards and gardens and are superb early season pollinators of fruit trees, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries -- better than honeybees -- especially since they are active in colder temperatures and their hairy bodies carry more of the pollen that fertilizes your blossoms. Though they won’t give you honey, they won’t ever chase or sting you either, unless severely provoked. They’re fun to watch as well.
Attracting Mason Bees
In the wild, Masons build their mud-sealed nests in natural tubes like reeds or holes in dead trees. Sometimes they’ll make homes between wood shingles on houses and barns. (They do not damage, they just build their mud homes in sheltered cracks.) Each female Orchard Bee makes her own nest in a series of tubes, sealed with mud. They are useful, small, and docile.
Now extensive research by the US Department of Agriculture has proved that the Mason bees’ task is made much easier if we provide 6” paper-lined tubes 5/16” in diameter that are somewhat weatherproof and contained in a protective shelter.
You can attract Mason bees to your garden with our nesting kits that provide exactly the right size holes the Orchard Bees are seeking in early Spring, in which to lay their eggs. Place the nest kit in a sheltered, sunny spot facing East or South where it won’t be disturbed, six to eight feet high. The smooth tubes we can supply mean the female Mason has a lot less prep work to do on her nest and can channel that extra time and energy into laying more eggs. Each female Mason can lay 30 eggs, six or seven per 6” nesting tube. So from just a few in a Starter House, you can build up a population of several thousand friendly pollinators in as little as three years.
Each tube is made from strong PVC pipe, containing a smooth, paper inner liner that can be replaced with a fresh paper insert, after the new generation has hatched each year. Extensive research by USDA has found that smooth 6" paper-lined tubes are preferred by the bees over short 4" holes drilled in wood blocks. The 6" tubes also insure a higher female ratio among the eggs produced.
Each nest comes with an informative leaflet. The Nest Kits were originally designed for the USA by Oxford Bee Company, in association with Oxford University in England.
Other Native Bees
You may attract a couple of leaf cutter bees besides the Orchard Mason Bee (Osmia lignaria), depending on where you live. Osmia Montana uses chewed leaves as a building material, so it looks green. Osmia californica uses a blend of leaves and dirt. They are helpful pollinators also.
Changing Your Nesting Tubes
Try to provide fresh nesting tubes for your Mason Bees, to replace tubes that have been used last year. This helps protect against a buildup of parasitic mites that can carry over in used tubes. Unused tubes are still good, of course.
The Mason Bee Life Cycle
Those mud sealed tubes contain the whole future population of Masons, males and females. All of last year’s adults have completed their lives by the end of the previous Spring. Each 6” tube contains 6 or 7 separate compartments, each with one egg and a food store pellet of pollen and nectar. In summer, the eggs hatch and the grubs feed. By September, they are transformed into adult bees that stay in their snug mud home until blossom time the following Spring.
Cleverly, the Mason Bee mothers have laid female eggs in the 4 or 5 most protected inner compartments – and just a couple of male eggs near the outside. The males chew their way out first into the warm Spring sunshine and eagerly await the coming out of the female debutantes. Mating is over quickly and the females devote the rest of their short, busy lives to finding a nest site, locating mud, making one cell at a time, provisioning it, laying one egg, sealing with mud – and on to the next one.
Because they are so docile, you can stand close to the tube and see the females going in frontwards with either mud or food pellets – then backwards in order to lay their eggs. Sometimes, they’ll just sit on the front porch of their tube and visit in neighborly fashion. Though each female is in complete charge of her own house and nesting arrangements, they’re quite gregarious and seem to like living in groups.
