Mason Bees for sale for the 2016 Spring Season

ARCHIVAL: This post has been re-dated from 2015 in order to position it closer in the blog to Mason Bee Information
masonlongLast year with the long warm season, our mason bees on the farm were successful in filling  a large number of reed tubes with cocoons.  Now I am removing them from the tubes, cleaning them  and storing in the refrigerator until release time from the end of February until the end of June. I will be selling them locally again for a price much below that of  commercial outlets and they are available immediately at the price of $6.00 per dozen cocoons.

Also, one of my last year’s clients showed me the mason bee house he had made with cutting channels in wood. He also included a section with reed grass tubes which I had given to him to try out. The comparison was quite astounding, as can be seen in this photograph  with a definite preference for the Phragmites reed grass tubes being demonstrated.
2015-12-01 13.44.06

I will be selling a limited number of these reed tubes for $5.00 a dozen this year.

Contact me at this e-mail: garryf (use the @sign) then add gmail dot com.

Attracting pollinators

NOTE: I have updated this 2015 post in order to make it appear closer to the other mason bee information

We seem to have no problem with insect pollinators here. By providing  certain plants which flower at different times in the year, insect pollinators can be attracted.  I show a few plants here that have been  very effective in the last few weeks and have swarms of pollinators around.

 

Identification of Wasp Larvae from Mason Bee tubes

ARCHIVAL: This post has been re-dated from 2016 in order to position it closer in the blog to Mason Bee Information

Wings held partly erect.
Wings held partly erect.

In the previous post I indicated I was trying to identify wasps that had taken up residence in mason bee tubes, without actually parasitizing the mason bees

 

 

largewasplarvaeI found the larvae in tubes while removing the mason bee cocoons in the winter, and transferred them to a separate jar where I  let them hatch. By May 1 they were hatching so after taking a few pictures, I sent the images off to BugGuide.

The result after several months was an identification by an expert in entomology : Our thanks to  Matthias Buck of  The Invertebrate Zoology Section, Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
http://bugguide.net/node/view/1218699#2158789

So he thinks there are actually three species represented in these pictures.

Food
Eumenines prey mainly upon moth larvae, although some take larvae of leaf-feeding beetles.
Adults take nectar.
Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon (Aculeata – Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps)
Superfamily Vespoidea (Yellowjackets and Hornets, Paper Wasps; Potter, Mason and Pollen Wasps and allies)
Family Vespidae (Yellowjackets and Hornets, Paper Wasps; Potter, Mason and Pollen Wasps)
Subfamily Eumeninae (Potter and Mason Wasps)
Genus Ancistrocerus

There were three species identified from my photographs( labelled above) although it is very difficult to confirm identity without being able to examine a specimen. Next year I will be sure to send him samples to confirm, and I will certainly not destroy these larvae when cleaning out mason bee tubes.

Mason bees pollinating kiwi fruit and the monodontomerus, parasitic wasp

This week I took out a few more mason bee which had already emerged from their cocoons  while still in the containers in the refrigerator. They sit very dormant when cold but take only minutes to get active as they warm up. Their normal time of emergence from dormancy would be much earlier in the year but releasing them now ensures pollination of the late blooming fruits.

It was time to add a few more bees to the population outside since  the strawberries continue to bloom and the kiwi fruit have started to bloom with this very warm weather we are having.

2015-06-04 strawber2a
Strawberry flowers

I also went around to all my mason bee boxes and removed the few cocoons that had not already hatched.

They either contained a dead bee or the larvae of the Monodontomerus, or “mono” which is a parasitic wasp that lays its eggs on the larva, usually within the cocoon of the mason bee. The tiny adult wasps emerged from one such cocoon. You can see the long penetrating ovipositer on the tail end. These have to be destroyed before they get to the bee larvae in the new cocoons.

 

NOTE: I have updated this 2015 post in order to make it appear closer to the other mason bee information

Plants for Pollinators in late May 2016

ARCHIVAL: This post has been re-dated from 2016 in order to position it closer in the blog to Mason Bee Information
The mason bees have almost stopped their work of pollination by now.  However several bumblebee species and honey bees were very active around certain plants in the yard this week.

Mason Bees Houses

I have received several inquiries about making homes for Mason Bees. Here are some useful references that may give you ideas. They are expensive to buy and really not that hard to make , just make sure you use the type that can be cleaned out at the end of the season, removing the cocoons cleaning out the parasites and storing them for the winter. Do not use holes drilled in a wood block unless the holes are large enough to have a tube fit inside of them, so that the complete tube is removable.  The tube diameter that is best is  5/16” (8 mm) , but a variety of sizes close to this wont hurt.

They need a house, so go online and you will see a variety of ways to make one, buy one etc.  They are easy to make if you have access to a table saw or router. Place the bee home when completed  against a warm south facing wall.. be sure not to move it once they start using it as they cannot find entrances that easily if moved.
On the link on this  website http://www.gfletcher.ca/?cat=2  I give some other information on the Mason Bees.
You can also  buy various types of homes at local garden supply centres or order them on line..
The tube diameter that is best is  5/16” (8 mm)
Here’s one site , I believe he is up island.
and this one in Washington tells how to make your own: http://olypollinators.blogspot.ca/p/housing-mason-bees.html
stacking the Phragmites tubes in the bee house
stacking the Phragmites tubes in the bee house

Next winter I will harvest more of the Phragmites tubes so that I will have extras to sell. Then you just need the equivalent of a birdhouse without the  front on it.

NOTE: I have updated this 2015 post in order to make it appear closer to the other mason bee information.

Mason Bees need mud!

NOTE: I have updated this 2015 post in order to make it appear closer to the other mason bee information

When Mason bees are laying eggs in their tubes it is essential that they have an easily available source of wet soil for building the individual chambers in which the pollen and nectar are deposited and the eggs will be deposited . Separating each egg chamber is a mud wall and capping the tube at the entrance will be a mud plug.  I have dug a trench a few metres from the nest boxes a metre long  and about 20 cm deep in which I periodically soak with water.  Along the walls of the trench I have poked small tunnels since I have observed that the mason bees prefer to go into horizontal holes to pick up  the mud.

Mason Bee Nesting Tubes: a Comparison


With a variety of information out on the internet on the best tubes to use for Mason Bee culture, I thought I would report here on some of the  trials I have run last season which compared different tubes and nestboxes.

In 2018 I placed Phragmites tubes alongside of the commercially available plastic hinged boxes.

For the question .. does availability of the number of nesting tubes determine the success rate?

In  the same location as the samples above , I also had a larger supply of tubes available with the following result.. I haven’t calculated the % of successful tubes here.  Note also the dimensions of the box.. I used maximum length Phragmites tubes for this box.

 

A late Season here for Mason Bees

It has been so cool in the last month here in Metchosin that my mason bees have almost missed the peach and nectarine blooming time.

A peach tree on the left with blossoms deteriorating, and a nectarine on the right at the south side of my barn. Three Mason bee houses are in the centre.

Update–April 15: Today they were the most active i have seen them . I started putting a few cocoons out a week ago, and have warmed up some indoors by just removing their containers  from the fridge and then setting the jar out in the daytime when the sun is on them.  Anyway a very unusual cold start for the spring.

I have several kinds of houses placed on the southeast corner of our house.

Note, I have re-dated this 2017 post to make it appear with the other mason bee posts.

Mason Bees (Blue Orchard Bees) in action

NOTE: I have updated this 2016 post in order to make it appear closer to the other mason bee information

Some images from this month’s activity of mason bees:

masonbeeonflower4
Today I was glad to see them active on my red pear which hasn’t produced well in past years.