Mason Bees Make Great Pets And Pollinators

Many people have bees as “pets” because they make honey and it can be sold. Have you ever thought of having “pet” Mason Bees to help improve your vegetable garden and fruit tree production?

This non-social cousin of the honeybee can help you have much more fruit and veggies while being less vulnerable to some of the health problems that other bee populations, wild and domestic, have. The loss of commercial honeybee colonies has been staggering, from 30 to 90% in some areas, all in the last six years.

Hartley Rosen of Mason Bee Vancouver, which is a project of the Environmental Youth Alliance stated “The plight of the honeybee has been in the headlines all over the world. Thirty or forty years ago, we didn`t need all these honeybees for crops, most of the pollination was done by native bees. The Mason Bee is a flagship species for us, because as backyard gardeners they are easy to manage and maintain and in terms of their ability to pollinate they are incredibly efficient.”

UBC Botanical Garden horticulture manager, Ingrid Hoff, said ” Mason Bees are solitary, nesting in hollow stems, woodpecker drillings, and insect holes, mainly in wooded areas. But a simple habitat made of wood drilled out with attractively-sized holes will coax mason bees into taking up residence in your yard. They help quite a bit with food gardening, actually.”  as per ” vancouversun.com”

You can buy housing equipment for the bees and kits include a set of blocks or drawers and Rosen explains ” If you use wood blocks, you won`t be able to clean out the nests, so if you want a little more control and ensure that you have cocoons for the following year, you should go to a tray system so you can take the cocoons out.”

Brian Campbell of Blessed Bee Farm said they use clay and water to build “mud walls” so provide this for them so they will have more time for pollinating.” You can buy “mud muffins” from West Coast Seeds. Be aware these bees do NOT produce honey, they are for pollination of your crops/fruit trees.

Image source  en.wikipedia.org  used with permission

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