Spring 2022 guide all pages for pdf

The Buzz About Mason Bees

Mason Bees are a solitary bee species and one of the 4000 bee species native to North America. Mason Bees are important early season pollinators. They tend to be active earlier in the day than other pollinators and are among the first to break dormancy in the spring making them especially beneficial for fruit tree pollination such as apple, plum and cherry. They are also one of the few species being managed for agricultural use. Mason Bees begin to break dormancy when temperatures reach 13°C, usually around the end of March. Males are the first to emerge, you can identify the males by their white tuft of facial hair. Female bees begin to emerge shortly after and are slightly larger and look like shiny houseflies. Mason Bees are solitary nesters, meaning there is no collective hive, every female mason bee hatched is a queen and responsible for laying eggs for future generations. After mating the newly hatched queens locate a nesting site, mason bees prefer to nest in pre-existing tunnels such as hollow plant stems, rock crevices and manmade nesting blocks. Once she’s found a suitable site, she collects pollen and nectar and creates food stores. The food supply and an egg are deposited in the tunnel and a chamber is sealed off with a mud wall to protect the egg. One queen will lay about 15 eggs, the eggs will develop into larvae and spin themselves a cocoon, by the end of the Summer the larvae will have developed into fully formed bees and will hibernate protected inside their cocoons until Spring.

COMOX PARKS

Attracting Mason Bees to your garden can be as simple as putting up a manmade nesting block, nesting blocks are available for purchase in many garden centers, or you can make one yourself. The most important consideration is that the houses can be taken apart and cleaned easily, cleaning houses and cocoons in the fall helps reduce pests and disease in future generations. The entire active lifespan of a female Mason Bee is only six weeks, and their flight range is only 300 ft so make sure you have a good selection of early blooming flowers available in your garden. Mason Bees are easy and rewarding to care for, with a little bit of time spent in the Fall cleaning cocoons and proper storage you can have these busy bees working hard in your garden increasing fruit tree production and your home garden yields. Mason bees are incredibly docile and rarely sting making them a great educational project to take on with kids. Sadly, native bee populations are in decline but there are many ways you can help. Reducing the use of pesticides, planting native plants and leaving your garden cleanup until Spring are all excellent ways to help our native pollinators.

For more information on how to help pollinators search online for Pollinator Partnership Canada.

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