Yesterday I got my first sting of the season. That would not be remarkable except for one detail: the culprit was a mason bee. A mason bee! I have never before been stung by such a creature. I’ve been keeping mason bees for about seven years, and during early spring the area around my patio […] Read more
Two weeks ago you peeked into your honey supers and were delighted to see cell after cell brimming with glistening nectar. Freshly drained from early blooms, the nectar was not yet cured but sparkled in the sunshine. You imagined the taste as you tucked the warm and fragrant frames back among the bees. Today you […] Read more
Except for natural bamboo tubes, it seems that most commercial tunnels sold for pollinator housing have an inside diameter of about 7 to 8 mm for orchard mason bees (Osmia lignaria), 6 mm for blueberry bees (Osmia ribifloris), and 5 mm for both alfalfa leafcutting bees (Megachile rotundata) and raspberry bees (Osmia aglaia). I don’t […] Read more
You’d think my backyard was some kind of bee bordello. Behind my house, a large group of male mason bees is hovering, darting, circling and bumbling along the roof line. Occasionally one lands on the pollinator housing to rest, while another suns himself on the windowsill. But a newly-hatched female Osmia peeking out of her […] Read more
If you want to save the mammals, you could adopt a pig. Although it sounds like fun, adopting a pig won’t save endangered mammals such as the polar bear, the Pacific pocket mouse, the American pika, or the Canada lynx. It’s a silly idea. Similarly, adopting an orchard mason bee won’t save the hundreds of […] Read more
Talk about claustrophobia. Just looking at this bee gives me the heebie-jeebies. Conventional wisdom says a blue orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria) likes a 5/16th-inch nesting hole. This hole is smaller, only 1/4 inch, drilled specifically for leafcutters. Apparently, no one in the bee world is reading my mind because the masons are eschewing the […] Read more