It’s in the best interest of gardeners, farmers, and anyone who eats, to support the health and well-being of Mason bees, a valuable early season pollinator. Independent, adaptable, and resilient, mason bees emerge from their cocoons at the first hint of warmth in spring and fly in wet and windy weather, which pretty much defines spring here in the Pacific Northwest, conditions that keep other bees grounded.
While Mason bees are entertaining to watch, the real benefit is increased pollination in the garden. Photo: Lorene Edwards Forkner
Tune into Bee TV
For years, I’ve had a mason bee “hotel” in the garden, a teardrop-shaped box filled with hollow bamboo tubes to provide nesting space. These gentle, non-stinging bees are fascinating to watch as they begin to emerge from last year’s mud-stopped cocoons, typically sometime in early March here in the Pacific Northwest. I call my box my Bee TV, it’s as compelling as the latest Netflix show and a welcome heads up that spring is right around the corner.
Mason bees don’t look like what we think a bee should look like. In fact, they more closely resemble a fly, although a very attractive metallic greenish-blue fly. And while they live and nest in proximity to others Mason bee are loners. Solitary by nature, each female mason bee forages for food, prepares a nesting environment and lays eggs all on her own.
The next season of (Mason) bee TV is about to drop. Photo: Lorene Edwards Forkner
Every garden matters
Once viewed as backup pollinators when honeybees were imperiled, solitary bees have proved to increase pollination in the company of other bees and are now recognized as critical to a sustainable food system. Important stuff.
Unlike honeybees that forage for miles gathering pollen and nectar, native solitary bees, including Mason bees, stick very close to home – only venturing about 300 feet from their nesting site. Even a moderately large parking lot or a ball field is an insurmountable barrier. Habitat fragmentation is a problem in urban areas as well as agricultural fields. Urban yards, parks and median strips go a long way toward providing pathways through our cities allowing pollinators to leapfrog from one landscape to another.
It’s likely that your garden is already home to this industrious pollinator. Mason bees are native to North America and naturally nest in garden cavities and holes created by birds or other insects. Chemical-free gardens are filled with wildness: plants, animals, birds, and insects. What’s more, we humans are a part of that wild mix. Tending a garden, no matter how big or how small, puts us in a relationship with the natural world.
I live in western New York and have provided nesting tubes for mason bees for a long time. They emerge earlier than honeybees in the spring so they are among the first pollinators. They are so gentle..I have accidentally walked through a number of them flying near our front porch. The males emerge first…here they exhibit a type of mustache which I find endearing. The hollow stems of lovage are among my favorite hollow tubed plant stems that I provide them for egg laying.
oh my! I must watch for the mustachioed males
I saw lots of activity at the Mason bee house I put up last spring. I live near Boston. The tubes were full and ended with mud but when I looked at them in January they are all empty and I have seen birds pecking at them. Should I put the bee house in the garage for the winter?
Yep, those are tasty treats for hungry birds. You can bring the bee house into a garage if it stays on the cool side – you don’t want them hatching too early. You also might want to cover the face of the nest with hardware cloth. Those little squares are permeable to bees, but will stop other wildlife from harvesting the cocoons.
Now that you know there are Mason bees in your garden, try putting out new tubes this spring and see if you can’t lure them back to the nesting site. Good luck!
Thanks for this rant. I’ve heard of Mason bees for a long time, and seen the various attractive nest “boxes” for sale, but I didn’t know that much about them. I suspect they don’t live in the hot dry south-southwest like Texas, where I live, but I’ll look up their range and see if they do. If so, I’m eager to put up a nest for them as well.
Mason bees are native throughout the country although in a dry spring you would likely need to supply them with a source of mud, water & dirt, for them to stop up their nests
I use blackberry cane cuttings, bundling together with twine….they are hollow, too.
I have had a nest for two seasons now, it is interesting that some of my tubes are sealed off with green plant material, and some are sealed with brown mud/soil. I live in suburban Denver and my structure has about 70-80 tubes, I would guess that at least 50-60 of them are occupied and closed off. After they emerge, is it necessary to clean out or replace the hollow tubes?
That’s fascinating! I suspect the tubes filled with plant material are nesting sites for leaf cutter bees, another beneficial solitary bee that’s active later on in the growing season.
Replacing the tubes every few years helps to stay ahead of mite pressure.
Thank you for a wonderful idea! Looking at some of the different houses available now.
Have fun!
So those cute mason bee hotels actually work? Any advice about placement?
Ideal placement is a southern exposure under an eave or some sort of protection. Many bee houses have that aspect built in. Then again, my first bee tv was a coffee can filled with nesting tubes affixed to a fence post.