For those who follow my blog, you may remember a post I did about our new addition, - the Mason Bees! :)I bought the bee house with the empty bee tubes, and one single tube housing 4-6 baby bees! That one, thin, cardboard tube can be seen 3 up from the bottom, center. You now will notice atleast 3 filled tubes in the bottom, center area! :) I have them placed in an out-of-the-way location, and totally missed this tube-filling activity! The few times I thought to go look, I didn't see anything happening, and began to feel concerned that they may have chosen to not use the house I'd provided for them! I noticed them when I went to water some plants in that area! I'm so thrilled to see they are using the house, because that means they are here to stay! :)
And as you can see, their population has now tripled in one season!! :) Hurray!! :) One year we should be looking at a "full house", and I'll be buying more housing for them! We had atleast 3 to 5 Mason Bee homes full of activity at the garden nursery I used to work at! One day I hope to see that pleasant, busy activity, right here at home! :)
So....tell me why you want bees around?
ReplyDeletePat, these are the little Mason Bees!! I developed a love for them while working at All Season Nursery, where we worked around them and sold them! :) They are cute, active little bees, (the size of a fly), that are the Best of all pollinators, even out pollinating the honey bee!! :) However, since they don't have a queen, and they don't make honey, they have nothing to protect, and no cause to sting!! :) A bee that doesn't sting, and pollinates all our fruit, veggies, and flowers, is a bee I had to include on our property!! :)
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