5 Things to Host Mason Bees Next Spring

The pick

Wax-Coated Mason Bee House

$27.46 on Amazon

Bamboo bundles glued in a can look right and slowly become mite farms - nesting holes must open for cleaning or the parasite load builds until the colony collapses. A real house holds removable trays or paper-lined tubes at the six-inch depth that yields daughter bees, with an overhanging roof for dry.

Face it east on a wall or post - morning sun is their alarm clock.

The pick

Mason Bee Paper Tubes, 120

$6.99 on Amazon

The unglamorous secret of mason bee keeping is hygiene: used tubes carry pollen mites and chalkbrood into the next generation, so filled tubes get retired after harvest and every spring starts clean. A bag of paper tubes costs little and is the difference between a colony that grows and one that dwindles.

8mm bore for orchard masons; the paper liner is what makes harvest possible.

The pick

Save-the-Bees Wildflower Mix

$14.66 on Amazon

Mason bees fly for just six spring weeks and provision every egg with pollen gathered close to home - a house without heavy early bloom in range simply does not get chosen. A bee-mix strip sown within sight of the house is the welcome mat: early natives that open with the fruit trees and keep the pollen coming through the whole nesting window.

Live cocoons ship seasonally from bee suppliers if you want to seed year one - order in winter.

The pick

Terracotta Saucers, 4-Pack

$24.99 on Amazon

Mason bees wall each egg chamber with mud, and a dry spring or sandy yard stalls the whole operation - females abandon sites without clayey mud in flying range. A terracotta saucer of damp clay soil near the house is the fix, topped up like a birdbath through nesting weeks.

Clay-heavy soil, not potting mix - they need mortar, not fluff.

The pick

Mesh Drawstring Bags, 10

$9.99 on Amazon

In fall the filled tubes come in for cocoon harvest - washed, sorted and refrigerated over winter - and mesh bags keep the cocoons aired but safe from the mice and parasitic wasps that would love a concentrated protein stash. The same bags protect a few prize sunflower heads from the jays.

Cocoons winter in the fridge in a ventilated box - the garage freezes too hard.