Mason bees are classified as solitary gregarious bees. This means that they have no real social interaction in the sense that a honeybee population would, but mason bees do like to nest near each other.  What does this mean for you? It means that mason bees don't protect their eggs after they lay them. They actually don't care about you or your children at all so they are the perfect backyard bee. The male has no stinger. The female has one but uses it so seldom that there is a common belief that mason bees can't sting. The females can but rarely do.

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The life cycle of these bees is fairly simple. Every spring when the day time temperatures start to get over 50 degrees with some regularity and enough days have passed since the egg was laid the previous spring, the mason bees chew through their protective cocoons, through the mud walls that protect their nesting chambers, and emerge into your garden. The actual date varies across the country from mid February in warm winter areas to late May in colder climates and higher elevations. 

 

The males emerge first, anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before the females. They spend their time foraging for nectar to build up their strength.  They stay close by the nesting tubes waiting for the females to emerge. These males do a bit of incidental pollinating while feeding but the vast majority of the work will be done later by the female.  As soon as the females emerge from the nesting holes, the males mate with them and then move away. When all of the females have been mated with the males die, and the rest of the season is all females.

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Female mason bees spend their days gathering pollen and nectar from flowers within about 100 yards of their nests. They use this pollen/nectar mix to make a lump of bee bread and place it in the back of a found hole. When the proper amount of food has been placed in the chamber the female backs in and lays a single egg into the food mass.  She  works her way down the length of the hole making cell after cell until she has filled the entire tube. Finally an extra thick masonry plug is constructed at the hole opening and the bee flies off looking for another hole. Female eggs are laid toward the back of the hole where it is safe from marauders and male eggs are put toward the front of the holes. In this way a hungry invader is likely to eat males only and leave the females safe. In the mason bee world it is all about protecting the females. Only a few males need to survive to mate the next spring, but every female is important.

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By early summer, all the adult females have laid their eggs and they die. The eggs spend the summer developing into new bees, and by fall they are fully mature bees in newly spun cocoons still in the same nesting tubes. They then hibernate all winter and wait for the signs of spring that will have them emerge in your garden. In other words, every year you will see the children of the bees you had the previous year. The colony should continue to grow every year as long as they have holes to lay their eggs into and pollen with which to provision the egg chambers.

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~ The Following Calendar Will Assist You in Your Beekeeping ~

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End of February / Early March  (outside temps 55+ degrees for 3-5 consecutive days)

• Place bee cocoons and their housing system in a sunny, elevated location. Bee shelters should be attached to a wall that gets direct sun. Loose cocoons should be hidden from predators and elements such as a hanging planter.

• Provide a clay mud puddle near housing area and keep moist.She needs mud to pack her tubes.

 

March 15th - April 1st

• Make sure you have clean tubes and liners ready and in place as the females will be on the lookout for fresh nests. Keep an eye on your housing area to ensure you have enough clean tubes to accommodate your growing population of bees.*Don’t move the tubes once nesting has begun.* It will interfere with the female’s finely tuned sense of direction.

 

April 15th

• All bees should have hatched from their cardboard tubes, but every season is different.This approximate date is sometimes earlier and sometimes later depending on Mother Nature. This would be a good time to pull the old liners from the tubes, open them up to ensure all bees have hatched, replace with new paper liners, and put the houses back out on your mason bee housing wall.

 

May 15th – June 15th

• The mason bee work is done for the season and next year’s bees are safely in their tubes.

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September 15th – 30th

• The larvae have developed into mature, full-grown mason bees in their cocoons hibernating through the fall and winter.

• Take your bee houses down and tuck away in a cool garage or shed to protect them from

predators such as rats, mice, raccoons, birds, ants and other insects.

 

October 1st – January 31st

• You can perform a random sampling of your bees, by extracting cocoons from 5-10% of

your cardboard tubes with paper liners, or wooden blocks. This is to ensure you have a viable population void of mites, chalk brood a (fungal disease) or other insects laid within the mason bee tubes. Krombeini mites will appear as a mass of dried yellow powder within a sealed section of the tube. Chalk brood spores will appear as a dried black cocoon. Dispose of them from the nesting area.

• Replace the paper liners with new ones and you are ready for the new season. During the sampling, if you find few problems, you can then proceed to remove all the filled liners and replace with new paper liners for next year. Put the filled paper liners in a berthing shelter or other container and they will be ready to hatch in March of next year.

• If you’d like you can harvest all the cocoons from their liners at this time. Keep the loose cocoons in the fridge at 38-42℉ with wet cloth or dish of water nearby until ready to set out in the spring.

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