Vince has been doing research and has decided he wants to create a habitat for mason bees. There’s so much emphasis on honey bees but mason bees, according to our research, are much easier to raise, more gentle (less likely to sting) than honey bees and will pollinate way more than honey bees.
Once their habitat is established, there’s very little work involved.
One thing very interesting that I never knew – some times of bees have long tongues and some have short tongues. Who knew that? Not me. When we go to our wildflower seminar this weekend, we’ll be looking for plants that work well with long tongue bees.
Mason bees benefit from very early blooming flowers/fruit trees, i.e., plum, elderberry and redbud (which we have). They also like dandelions which we definitely have.
Mostly, I’m so happy to see Vince seem interested in raising some pollinators. I had always wanted honey bees but they can be more work than Vince is willing to do so . . we’ll see how this goes!
Sara Fridley says
How interesting! I had never heard of Mason bees, and immediately had to look them up. I didn’t realize there were “other” types of bees that didn’t produce honey but still did so much pollinating. I’ll be so interested to see the process of getting them going in your yard/garden.
When we lived on a farm (some decades ago) we had hives on our property belonging to a small local honey producing company. We were paid in honey every year – gallons of it. It was wonderful and quite fascinating to watch the bees around the hives. The company is still thriving, in spite of the problems with colony collapse. But we have to buy the honey now.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Several friends here raise bees and have hives on property around the area. Free honey had to be super nice! We use a lot of honey and I had always wanted bees but it would have been work for Vince . . not so much for me, and he was never much interested in it.
Liz says
…I checked out a website that sells mason bees – it’s interesting that they sell the bees in their hibernating tubes. Will Vince make some “houses” for them?
Since you are going to a wildflower class, are you going to create an area for wildflowers like many states are doing alongside highways? Very pretty during the spring and summer and less mowing since you need to have to let things reseed. Flowers that monarch and other butterflies like would be beautiful, though watch out if you have any parsley.. The caterpillars can wipe out a garden fast, though the parsley will send up new shoots.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Vince has already purchased the tubes and he will make the houses for the tubes. We’re not going to buy the bees but hope to attract them from the wild. The bees will travel 300 feet for the flowers so we’ll have beds around the yard, not like you see along highways per se. In an open bed, most of the flowers will reseed. We already have some of the flowers growing that they like. The main thing for us is to have things that are blooming early, as well as late for other pollinators and we want to plant only native plants. We have a lot to learn but it’s fun learning.
Paula Nordt says
We began keeping honey bees about 3-4 years ago. It CAN be a lot of work. And it can definitely be heartbreaking. That winter, the power grid failed in Texas, we lost seven hives. Later in the summer, some farmer or rancher sprayed poison and we lost another five hives. We’re slowly building back up, because my husband is stubborn and won’t quit. We also have wild carpenter bees and bumblebees.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
We started a few hives when we lived in MO the first time. We had problems with ants and by the time Vince got that under control, we found out we were moving to Texas so he gave up on honey bees. It was always more my idea than Vince’s. If the mason bees will help pollinate, that will be enough for us.
Sheryl says
…Mason Bee houses can be made with recycled cans and bamboo tubes. We did that for kids at Pollination Celebration in Hammond 2016. The kids loved doing it.
Pamela says
I have a friend who lives on a large property where she cultivates native plants and encourages wild life. She had a large wall dedicated to the mason bees. They were full and active. Then 75% were destroyed by wood peckers. She is going to put some type of screening up next year. I don’t know if wood peckers are of concern where you live or not.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
That’s terrible. I haven’t seen wood peckers here but that doesn’t mean they aren’t here. I’ll tell Vince.