This thread has been an interesting read. I did not see a single honey bee this year until after the apples bloomed, but I noticed a handful of mason bees flying around the trees. I am now convinced they are responsible for all of our apples this year. I also do not feel nearly so bad that our cat slaughtered and partially consumed both of the neighborhood woodpeckers this past year. I was considering trying to trap a swarm of honey bees next year, but this seems like a sure thing. I know they are living wild here, so it should be a matter of setting them up with a house. I still may try to trap some honey bees.
I have plenty of hybrid plums, and P. angustifolia early in the season, but I am looking into other nectar sources. We have plenty of lilacs, and a small lavender patch, but I am wondering about redbud, serviceberry, and native dogwood. I grew up in Ohio, so I am not familiar with what grows well on the West coast. I don’t think bees eat forsythia, but I think I saw them on weigela.
I have some good indoor growing gear, so maybe I will start some native flowers early. Bee balm is pretty. I seem to recall many of the mountain wildflowers in the U.S. are magnets for wild bees.
The one issue I fail to grasp is the worry about freezing. I understand bringing them in because of wasps, but if they are native bees, how the hell can they not survive N. American Winters? They evolved to wake with the native nectar flow, so why shouldn’t we be acclimating them instead of forcing them out on our terms? It seems counter-intuitive to me. If you force them awake before it is warm enough, you should not be surprised by a high mortality rate. You also may be putting them out when there are too few bugs to distract hungry birds. I can’t help but wonder if it might be better in the long run to shelter and protect them from wasps outdoors, without jacking up their circadian rhythms.
I think like all bees they vibrate for warmth and there cocoon and sugar substance helps them from freezing as well as the wood they put there babies in are insulators. I think if you drill holes in old tree stumps they do fine but the silly little bamboo / reeds want to go inside if it gets too far in the negatives and be decently sheltered from wind is my understanding.
I bought one of the Mason bee houses from my local Lowes and put it up about 3 years ago nailed into a wooden fence right next to my small orchard. Nothing happened in that house for the first 2+ years. It sat on the fence empty. Then one day I was out and noticed a few holes had been filled up and next thing you know, the majority of the holes are filled up. Not sure why it took so long but they did indeed find and build, just took some time.
Willow is probably the earliest native flower source on the west coast
yep. my big black willows are the 1st. plant to bloom in my yard. i was considering cutting them down as they are messy but can’t bring myself to do it knowing the early emerging insects that they provide food for. even the birds eat the blooms.
We have a French pussywillow that had some bees on it this year. Its not very big, and I have never heard of it as a nectar source (pussywillow honey?). I probably have at least half a dozen big black willows within 100 yards of our house. It makes me wonder about rhododendron and azalea. Our neighborhood is pretty much blanketed with them. If Japanese maple, mountain ash, and paperbark birch were a benefit, this would be paradise. You can’t throw a stone around here without crossing the shadow of a purple-leaf Prunus or flowering cherry.
@nil,
I believe willow is most important as a early pollen ( protein ) source for brood rearing, not so much for nectar ( sugar)
I just harvested my cocoons for the third season of keeping mason bees. Got 53. Heres my 3 year numbers:
2017: 19 cocoons
2018: 118
2019: 53
Maybe i am at flower resources carrying capacity already? Or maybe just a poor survival year.
If you do not take the cocoons out what will happen?
I think it was my second or third year that mason bees showed up when i got my house. The first year i brought in tons of flowers (perennials started from seed) and did things naturally and provides houses, The only beneficial that set up shop from the beginning was lacewings and ladybugs (probably nematodes and worms also) by the time i gave up on native bees and bumble bees ( i would see bumbles but none living in my yard) and got honeybees everything that year showed up including several trichogramma wasps and other beneficial insects. Bumblebees prefer mouse holes and will evict them.
I use cornelian cherry dogwood, but witch hazel is supposed to be real good for that too.
By the way Richard Round Tree, I’ve got to say that I love your name. I remember a lot of those old movies.
Crocus bloom very early as well.
I don’t clean, remove, or do anything to my mason bees and I break branches every year from too much fruit. I just started putting a bungee on them and sometimes tying them into the sideways coffee can that they are in so the squirrels don’t pull them out and eat them. It has worked well for me that way.
John S
PDX OR
Cheers John!
I was hoping someone would remember the old Shaft movies! I think Maples are our earliest pollen and nectar source but a lot of times they bloom before the bees want to fly up that high.
What do you keep your mason bees in just coffee cans and reeds? i was thinking of using a 2x4 and trying to build them a long house under my eaves, This would be about 10’ and out of direct sun but out of wind, what do you guys think of that as a place?
I use teasel, cut to about 6 inches, then bundle them with a bungee and leave them in a say, coffee can, screwed to the fence facing east. I have a couple under eaves. Good.
John S
I use the paper tubes in a coffee can, then bring the coffee cans inside in June or when the bees have ceased activity.
i built a diamond shaped house for them and use the japanese knotweed canes that grow everywhere here. i too remove the full canes. put them in garage till fall then harvest the cocoons to put in the fridge till spring…
Nothing in my yard attracts the native bees like my maypop, and it blooms for a long time. There were bees on it just about every time I looked.
We call them passion flowers in my area. You are right there seems to always bees or bumble bees on the flowers.
love English laurel and plums, cherries, and blueberriesMy mason bee house with a insert to remove bees.