Wondering why to keep mason bees? I also wrote a more sentimental piece because I love mason bees! Find it here. You can also watch videos of mason bees chewing their way out of our cocoons, on the palm of my hand. So much fun! You can watch that here.
And now it's time to get more technical! This is how you keep mason bees!
1) Buy or make a mason bee house. I've seen lots on the market. Some terrible, that will surely fall apart. Many others are awful because they're the wrong size. Many are okay and will do the trick, but I like ours best because it has a tiled roof and it has a "basement" where you can place the cocoons. By placing the cocoons in the same building, you're putting their ideal home right in front of them. I also guess that you're making their house smell like bees and this will attract them back again to lay their eggs. Perhaps, even more importantly, you're giving your bees a place safe from predators while they come out of their post-emergence stupor.
To make it even easier for mason bees to use your house, paint the front, outer edge of your bee house a bright color. The colors mason bees see best are yellow, green, blue and purple. They don't see red at all.
The most important feature is that your house fits removable tubes that measure 6 inches in length. Make sure your house has about a 1 inch overhang to keep the tubes protected from the elements and predators.
2) Pick the best location for your mason bee house. Ideally, your mason bee house faces south or southeast. This isn't always possible and you can still have a successful and happy bee population in another location. Place your bee house in a location that gets lots of sun and heat. Unlike in the photo above, place your bee house where it will not be shaded by foliage. Don't hang your bee house in a tree, either. Mason bees don't like the swaying sensation that comes when the wind blows the tree. Place your mason bee house at least 3 feet up from the ground. Honestly, you're going to have so much fun watching the bees that one of the most important features is that you can easily look into your bee house and that there's a way for kids to step up and see into it, too. 3) Order bee tubes. These are the bees I've come to love best (I'm not making any money off this recommendation). I'm all about reusable, but when it comes to mason bee tubes, you want to order removable tubes that can be cleaned out. (There are pests that are ruining bee populations and these days mason bees need some human help to not only survive, but to thrive). I use disposable, cardboard tubes. (This is about the only disposable item in my life!) It is essential that the tubes measure at least 6 inches in length, with 6 inches being perfect. Short tubes means less female bees and more males. The diameter needs to be 5/16 inches. Please don't be tempted to buy a different size. If you do, your bees won't be as happy, they won't lay as many eggs and you won't get as many females.
4) Get a clay source ready for your bees. Place the natural clay on the ground near the base of your bee house post. The bees will gather clay to divide the cells they create in the bee tubes. This is why they're called mason bees! Clumps of clay soil work wonderfully.
Mason Bee Collecting Clay 5) Buy Mason Bees. My bees are Blue Orchard Mason Bees. It's important to select the right bees! Make sure you buy bees that are native to your area. This is absolutely essential!!! If possible, buy bees locally. If you can't get bees locally, I like Crown Bees (again, I'm not making any money on this. I have no affiliation at all with Crown Bees). It's a good idea to order your bees in the winter months. You will store them until you're ready to put them out in their house. Here's how you store bees: get a large glass or plastic container. Then get another smaller container and place the boxes of bees in that. Place a damp cloth in between the bee container and the larger container. Put a lid on the large container but don't seal it. Place it at the back of your fridge. Don't forget to label this! You can never predict other people's behavior lol I think you should get a minimum of 20 bees. 60 would be a dream. Make sure you don't fall for buying equal numbers of males and females. You only need 2 or 3 males in every batch of 20 bees.
6) Watch for blooms in your yard. Then put out your bees on a sunny day! When the first flowers on my apple trees open, I put out my bees. If you have only 20 bees, put them all out. If you have more bees than 20, you can stagger their release over the next several weeks. Put all your bees out by the end of May. This is how you put out your bees: Fill your bee house with tubes. Completely fill it, even if there's no way you have enough bees to fill all the tubes. Open the box or envelope that your bees came in and place them in the basement of your bee house. If you have no basement, get creative. Make sure the bees are sheltered and in close proximity to your tubes. Then wait patiently. How do you know if your bees are about to emerge? Put your ear up next to where the cocoons are. Hear chewing? Yes? It's warm enough for your bees to come out into the world! Yay! Very exciting.
7) Create a hospitable bee are. Make sure to regularly wet the clay beneath your bee house. This softens the clay, making it easier for the bees to collect. Put out a shallow saucer of water near the bee house. I've never seen any of my bees use it. Apparently you're supposed to do this. Heat wave? Water your flowering plants in the evening so there is more nectar available to mason bees and bumblebees. This will keep the bees hydrated and enable them to survive a heat wave. Grow as many flowers as possible! More flowers means more pollen cakes for the next generation of bees in the tubes. Personally, I've seen what a difference more flowers make. When the bees emerge from their cocoons, they are much more energetic than they are in a less flowery environment. This is a great excuse to add beautiful flowers to your vegetable garden! Geum are a perennial that bloom early and the bees go crazy for them. I go crazy for them, too!
8) Watch. Enjoy. Delight in the bees. Leave them alone until September or October. In early August you can cover your bee house with fiberglass screen to keep predators and pests out. Otherwise, leave the bees alone. The last of the females will die out by sometime in June or July.
Mason Bees in Slow Motion
9) Before you collect the bees in September or October, get your bee storage supplies together. See step 5. I use the boxes my first bees came in. I also use seed envelopes.
10) Clean and store your bees. Gather the bee tubes from your bee house. Bring them in whether they're full or not. Spread out some newspaper and grab a few large bowls, or colanders. Get some sharp scissors. To empty a tube, gently make a very tiny snip at the top of the tube. This will make it easier to gently peel apart the bee tube. One by one, remove the cocoons. (This part is like digging for gold...or potatoes). Gently rub off the clay and other debris. The other debris is generally a combination of pollen and bee poop. Inspect each cocoon to make sure it doesn't appear to have a hole drilled in it. If it does, get rid of it. This is pest damage. Collect all the healthy cocoons in a bowl.
Tip: before opening a tube, I look down it to see if there's anything actually in it. Sometimes there's nothing but a bit of clay or maybe an earwig. If there's an earwig, I get rid of it by blowing forcefully through one end of the tube. I do the same for bee poop and clay.
I keep all tubes that have not been used and save them for the following year. The bees seem to be extra attracted to these tubes. I imagine they smell like bees and make the house more attractive.
Here's how you clean your mason bees: Once you've collected all your healthy cocoons, put them together in a small bowl. Fill with cold water and stir (with the end of a spoon or a chopstick) for 60 seconds. Then carefully drain the water out. Repeat. Drain the water. Repeat but add a 1/4 tsp of bleach this time. Then rinse and stir one more time. (That was a total of 4 times being washed). Drain the water and then carefully spread the cocoons out on a clean towel to air dry. Let the cocoons air dry for 45 minutes. 11) Sort and store your mason bees. I usually sort my mason bees before I store them. The males are the really little cocoons. The rest are the females. When I store my bees, I distribute the males equally among the females. This makes it easy to grab a batch of bees next spring. To store, see step 5.
12) Next spring: Start all over again! I am grateful for my mason bees. Everything I create and sell in my shop is the product of pollination. Please visit my shop and see for yourself!
Wishing you lots of fun and flowers,
