Anybody using Mason Bees ??

[Little big horn]

I see that I have two tubes they have mudded up to the end but I have only seen a couple queens working since I put about 50 larva out . I dug a angled hole two ft deep rt in front of my house and its been wet with all the rain in iowa. first year trying to establish my hope as my 100 fruit trees mature it would help with pollination cold wet spring tough year on bees . I think male bees only live 10 days and queens 4 weeks so im afraid Im at about end of their life cycle .

 

[PoorSand]

Flying insects swarmed a particular grove of my apple trees heavily when they were in full bloom this weekend. Almost half looked like mason bees to me. Most of the others were smaller. I saw only one honey bee. I had placed some old pine logs by that grove some years ago. Ants had made starter holes in them. They are riddled with enlarged holes.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Little Big Horn - Mason bees are known to fly even on rainy days, according to all the literature I've read on them. That's another plus for mason bees, beside visiting MANY more blossoms per day than honey bees do.

 

[PoorSand]

There was a gap in time between when my mason bees crawled out and when the earliest of my apple trees started to blossom. I didn't see much nearby for them to feed on before the apple bloom started. I've since dug up some early flowering wild crabapple root suckers, potted them, and plan to plant them by my apple trees this fall to help in the long term.

 

[Tap]

There was a gap in time between when my mason bees crawled out and when the earliest of my apple trees started to blossom. I didn't see much nearby for them to feed on before the apple bloom started. I've since dug up some early flowering wild crabapple root suckers, potted them, and plan to plant them by my apple trees this fall to help in the long term.

I think that is one of the downsides to masons. From my extremely limited experience around them, they do not have a lot of seasonal longevity. Stuff that blooms earlier or later doesn't get pollinated by them like with other bees.
But I will say this...take my early blooming pear trees for example...almost zero bees on them during full bloom, but there are thousands of other little pollinating bugs that get the job done. So much so that my trees break under the weight of massive pear production.
I hope honey bees never become extinct, but I sometimes wonder if it will be as catastrophic as we have been led to believe. Honey bees aren't the only pollinators.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[Barndog56]

I released 40 mason bees this spring, which all quickly disappeared. Our late spring was probably the main reason. I also released 50 leafcutter bees mid June for garden and pumpkin pollination. At least 1 stuck around as I ended up with 4 tubes filled.

Two weeks ago my wife grabbed a generic bee house on clearance for $5 at Dollar General. I placed it near the pumpkin patch, which also has a solis stand of buckwheat in full bloom. In just 10 days there are already 15 tubes fully filled. They are larger than mason or honey bees, possibly carder bees?


The tubes in this house are not removable, and I don't know if these bees will emerge early enough for apple pollination, but I'll be putting the house back out next May to see.

 

[Little big horn]

We had about 10 tubes filled by mason bees we released saw maybe 4-5 queens working then that ceased and now we too have had wild leaf cutter bees fill tubes and maybe 20 tubes on 3 houses. Also have a store bought house with big reeds that have been getting filled like yours will put out next spring . We thought our mason bees disappeared too but when it finally warmed up by god there were a couple survivors will buy more cacoons next year again kinda fun to see when they do what we were hoping !

 

[PoorSand]

My orchards in which I released mason bees this spring had far higher percentages of blossoms that turned into fruit than those where I didn't. I continue to work to improve the habitat for them.

 

[Barndog56]

Two weeks later and the house is filling up quickly.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Barndog - Nice !!! ^^^^ I think I'll build more bee houses for next year.