Designed and built by the mason bee guru of the northwest, these are by far the most user friendly mason bee houses that we’ve ever seen. They come with two separate “homes” that each have 70 mason bee tubes for your bees to nest in. The disposable paper tubes sit inside thicker permanent tubes and the beauty of these particular paper tubes is that each one has a pre-cut slit running the length of them, making it even easier for you to remove and clean off your mason bees in the fall.

These mason bee houses also come with an emergence box to place your cocoons in that allow the mason bees a safe dry place to wake from their winter slumber. It fits snugly between the two houses so the mason bees know right where to come back to when it’s time to lay their eggs.

Our Mason Bee Condo comes fully assembled and includes a real wood housing to keep your bees dry. The back of the house has a hook making the kit ready to hang. Don’t forget to include a box of Live Mason Bees and a bag of clay to help the bees seal their home if a good source is not available near by.

Read all about mason bees and caring for them with our Mason Bee Care Guide

Mason Bee Condo Installation Instructions:

1. The best time to place your bees outside is in late winter/early spring before temperatures get above 60 degrees.
2. Determine the number of tubes you need to place in condo. Each can is supplied with 72 kraft tubes with pre-slit white inserts. Rule of thumb: you’ll need 10 tubes for every 14 bee cocoons. So, if you purchase 50 cocoons, you should place only 36 tubes in the can. Store surplus tubes/liners for use in subsequent years.
3. Place clean cocoons inside white emergence box and then secure the lid of the box to the underside using two strips of masking tape.
4. Attach the emergence box to one or both cans in the bee condo using the supplied velcro strips. Make sure that the box is not exposed to the elements. Mason bees do not like getting wet.
5. You should place your bee condo in a location where the bees will have access to some sunshine and also be protected from rain. Recommendation: insert a picture hook underneath an eave with eastern or western exposure. Place the condo on the hook.
6. The bees will do the rest. Enjoy!

The post Mason Bee Condo appeared first on One Green World.

A relative of the Blue Orchard Mason Bee, the Horn-faced Bee (Osmia cornifrons) is native to Japan and was introduced by the USDA in the 1970’s to help with crop pollination services. Similar to the Blue Orchard Mason Bee, the Horn-faced Bee visits many more flowers in a day than a honey bee and is a very effective pollinator. Unlike the Blue Orchard Mason Bee which is native to North America, the Horn-faced Bee has been introduced and in some cases has been seen to outcompete native pollinators. For this reason we only ship the Horn-faced Bee east of the Mississippi River where it has already more or less naturalized. Please do not order Horn-faced Bees if you are in the Western United States as we will have to cancel and refund your order. 

Please note, these bees are shipped dormant in their cocoons. We recommend always opening the box outside as they are live bees and may wake up during transit in warmer weather. If you receive the bees before the ideal time to release them in your area, it is best to store them in the refrigerator until they are ready to be released.

Life-cycle

Unlike honey bees (Apis) or bumblebees, Osmia species are solitary; every female is fertile and makes her own nest, and no worker bees for these species exist. Solitary bees produce neither honey nor beeswax. They are immune from acarine and Varroa mites, but have their own unique parasites, pests, and diseases.

The horn-faced bee emerges early in the spring when daytime temperatures rise to about 50 degrees consistently. This usually coincides with fruit tree bloom. The males emerge first and stay close to the nest site waiting for females.

When the females do emerge, the first thing they do is look for a mate. Soon after the males die and the females start work on their nests for the year. They begin by finding a suitable hole, and then start to gather pollen and nectar from nearby flowers as food for their young.

The pollen is deposited into the back of the nest hole one load at a time. This is done until a suitable store is gathered. Then, the bee lays an egg on top of the mass.

Pollination

Horn-faced bees are amazing pollinators. Unlike honey bees that have leg pockets for pollen storage, a horn-faced bee must stuff pollen into stiff hairs on her abdomen. This less sophisticated method leads to much better pollination because on each flower she tries to stuff pollen into the hairs, but some inevitably falls out, likely pollinating the flower.

While a honey bee typically pollinates about 5% of the flowers it visits in a day, it is estimated that a horn-faced bee pollinates 95%. And on top of that the horn-faced bee visits more than twice as many flowers every day!

Management

The nesting habits of many Osmia lend themselves to easy cultivation, and a number of Osmia are commercially propagated in different parts of the world to improve pollination in fruit and nut production. Commercial pollinators include O. lignaria, O. rufa, O. cornuta, O. cornifrons, O. ribiflorus, and O. californica. They are used both as an alternative to and as an augmentation for European honey bees. Mason bees grown for orchard and other agricultural applications are all readily attracted to nesting holes – reeds, paper tubes, nesting trays, or drilled blocks of wood; in their dormant season they can be transported as intact nests (tubes, blocks, etc.), or as loose cocoons. As is characteristic of solitary bees, they rarely sting when handled, (only under duress such as when wet or squeezed), their sting is smaller and less painful, and their stinger is unbarbed, all attributes cited by different commercial growers.

Horn-faced Bee Supplies

To help your bees succeed, consider these supplies: Mason Bee Tubes & Mason Bee Clay!

Read our full Mason Bee Care Guide here.

The post Horn-faced Bees appeared first on One Green World.

Mason Bee Tubes, a tearable tube insert that opens easily. Sold as a bundle of 25 x 8mm tubes are a specialized size for our Blue Orchard Mason Bees.

These tubes are easy to open and can be used as inserts when placed into either drilled block of wood or another protective barrier or container.

Mason Bee Tube Features:

• It’s the right size and shape for spring mason bees to use.
• 6″ long fits into most all nesting houses.
• The tube is easy for you to tear open to observe your mason bees’ condition at fall harvest.

The post Mason Bee Tubes appeared first on One Green World.

Mason Bee Clay is to be used to make mud for your Orchard Mason Bees. Female bees need moist clay to build the cell walls in the nesting chamber. This clay is ideal for yards where the soil is too sandy to make adequate mud. Set out a container of clay powder if your soil is not naturally high in clay.

Find more information in our Mason Bee Care Guide.

The post Mason Bee Clay appeared first on One Green World.

Become a beekeeper with Mason Bees and have the best native pollinator around.  All you have to do is just release the Mason Bees directly from our provided box when your fruit trees begin to bloom each year. Our Mason Bee box comes with 20 or 100 of these amazing bees. Choose 20 (will pollinate 4-5 fruit trees) or save more money and go big with a box of 100 bees.  Our Mason bees are the fattest and most vigorous bees we could source.

Please note, these bees are shipped dormant in their cocoons. We recommend always opening the box outside as they are live bees and may wake up during transit in warmer weather. If you receive the bees before the ideal time to release them in your area, it is best to store them in the refrigerator until they are ready to be released.

Orchard Mason Bees Pollinators

We are excited to offer these work horses of fruit tree pollination. Expect higher fruit set and larger yields. These bees will find places to live close to where they are released. If you purchase the Mason Bee Board with your bees you can farm your own bees and increase them each year. Mason bees are a common name for species of bees in the genus Osmia, of the family Megachilidae. They are named from their habit of making compartments of mud in their nests, which are made in hollow reeds or holes in wood made by wood-boring insects.

Life-cycle

Unlike honey bees (Apis) or bumblebees, Osmia species are solitary; every female is fertile and makes her own nest, and no worker bees for these species exist. Solitary bees produce neither honey nor beeswax. They are immune from acarine and Varroa mites, but have their own unique parasites, pests, and diseases.

The orchard mason bee emerges early in the spring when daytime temperatures rise to about 50 degrees consistently. This usually coincides with fruit tree bloom. The males emerge first and stay close to the nest site waiting for females.

When the females do emerge, the first thing they do is look for a mate. Soon after the males die and the females start work on their nests for the year. They begin by finding a suitable hole, and then start to gather pollen and nectar from nearby flowers as food for their young.

The pollen is deposited into the back of the nest hole one load at a time. This is done until a suitable store is gathered. Then, the bee lays an egg on top of the mass.

Pollination

Orchard mason bees are amazing pollinators. Unlike honey bees that have leg pockets for pollen storage, a mason bee must stuff pollen into stiff hairs on her abdomen. This less sophisticated method leads to much better pollination because on each flower she tries to stuff pollen into the hairs, but some inevitably falls out, likely pollinating the flower.

While a honey bee typically pollinates about 5% of the flowers it visits in a day, it is estimated that a mason bee pollinates 95%. And on top of that the mason bee visits more than twice as many flowers every day!

Management

The nesting habits of many Osmia lend themselves to easy cultivation, and a number of Osmia are commercially propagated in different parts of the world to improve pollination in fruit and nut production. Commercial pollinators include O. lignaria, O. rufa, O. cornuta, O. cornifrons, O. ribiflorus, and O. californica. They are used both as an alternative to and as an augmentation for European honey bees. Mason bees grown for orchard and other agricultural applications are all readily attracted to nesting holes – reeds, paper tubes, nesting trays, or drilled blocks of wood; in their dormant season they can be transported as intact nests (tubes, blocks, etc.), or as loose cocoons. As is characteristic of solitary bees, they rarely sting when handled, (only under duress such as when wet or squeezed), their sting is smaller and less painful, and their stinger is unbarbed, all attributes cited by different commercial growers.

Mason Bee Supplies

To help your Mason Bees succeed, consider these supplies: Mason Bee Tubes & Mason Bee Clay!

Read our full Mason Bee Care Guide here.

The post Orchard Mason Bees appeared first on One Green World.