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Mason Bee Products
Use Mason Bees to pollinate your garden
The Mason Bee, Osmia lignaria, also known as the blue orchard bee, is one of many wild solitary bee species present in North America. It is friendly, and an efficient pollinator. They are called "Mason" because they construct walled-off chambers for each egg they lay. Mason bees begin working early in spring when flowers and fruit trees are beginning to blossom. After emerging from their cocoons and mating, the female Mason bees goes to work collecting pollen and nectar, while also pollinating your blossoms.
In both cities and suburbs, we depend on wild bees such as bumble bees and honey bees to pollinate our fruit tree blossoms. Two species of parasitic mites have decimated our wild honey bee colonies (though beekeepers are able to keep mite levels down in managed honey bee colonies). The dramatic reduction in wild honey bee colonies has left us with very few honey bees in our garden.
One solution to this lack of fruit is to provide nests, and nectar and pollen producing flowers for local solitary bees such as the Mason bee. This will increase the number of Mason bees and provide the pollination level we need to get a reasonable fruit crop.
Mason bees need nesting tunnels and food for their developing young. Our mason bee supplier, Beediverse® has developed a nesting tray system that helps Mason bees thrive and stay healthy from one year to the next. This is of great benefit to the backyard gardener.
The STS-system.
Mason bee nests from Beediverse are based on the Stacked Tray-System (STS), which consists of stacked pieces of wood or plastic Quicklock trays with grooves. These create the nesting tunnels when stacked. Stacking allows for easy assembly, disassembly and cleaning. Our nests are designed to be taken apart in the fall, for cleaning and to rid the coccoons of any harmful mites. Mites can build up in such numbers that the Mason bee population crashes in 2-3 years, and very few bees are available for pollination. When many bees are found on the ground and have a reddish coat of mites it is a sure sign that the bees are suffering from a mite investation. Cleaning of cocoons removes mites so the adult mason bees do not carry mites to new nests and infect more bees.
Mason bee nests can be placed in your backyard, rooftop, or apartment patio garden. You can place them onto a protected wall in your backyard garden, roof top garden, or apartment patio.
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