# Mason Bees



## ronald_stuffleb (Feb 12, 2014)

Any advise on raising mason bees? I hear they are excellent pollinators & require very little if any equipment. I hope to build some habitat this year and will be posting the results here but would love to know if anyone has a head start on me.


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## k0xxx (Oct 27, 2011)

We don't raise them, but we do place "houses" for them in the garden area. We use a piece of untreated 4x4 and drill a bunch of 5/16th inch holes in one side (about 3 inches deep). Then we place a length of treated 1x6 over it for a roof. Face the holes to the south and have it out for March, and the bees will thank you by pollinating your garden.

We replace the house each Spring after the new bees emerge, and clean out the one that was just used. Also, putting a light coat of vegetable oil on the untreated wood before each use will help preserve the wood, while not being toxic to the bees.

Here is an image showing what ours basically looks like (minus the design on top).


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

The latest Territorial Seed Catalog which sells seeds that do best for the Western coastal side of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington even sells Mason bees and houses for them. Honey bees seem to be doing pretty good here in S.W. Oregon but we also see large amounts of mason bees, bumble bees and other pollinators that show up in the earliest blossoming trees when it's not really warm enough for honey bees.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

So... *THAT'S* what those things are!! (I had to do an image search)

We have bazilions of them... and they'll fill and plug any hole on the property!!

A couple bare, old engine blocks will hold 100's of them! (all kinds of holes!)


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

LincTex said:


> So... *THAT'S* what those things are!! (I had to do an image search)
> 
> We have bazilions of them... and they'll fill and plug any hole on the property!!
> 
> A couple bare, old engine blocks will hold 100's of them! (all kinds of holes!)


Since we often have our vehicles parked for long periods of time between use they frequently fill unused bolt holes in engines. I often joke that we leave our driveway so infrequently that grass grows in the tire tracks. Spare parts in a shed that have holes in them need to be wrapped in bags or covered fully, even the condensate drain hose from our motor home fridge gets plugged by them. I don't mind that as I really appreciate them being around but we have a new type of bee that showed up a few years ago that's the size of a bumble bee, it's all black, hairy and shiny, the trouble is it bores into wood. That wouldn't be too bad but it's doesn't discriminate where it bores and I really don't appreciate it when they bore into shed rafters and doors. If you get near their nest bore I've had them hit me in the face a number of times. I don't know if they are good pollinators but I'd rather have other good ones around than these buggers.:rant:


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Viking said:


> but we have a new type of bee that showed up a few years ago that's the size of a bumble bee, it's all black, hairy and shiny, the trouble is it bores into wood.


THOSE are very, very, VERY bad to have around!! Kill every one you see!!!


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## k0xxx (Oct 27, 2011)

LincTex said:


> THOSE are very, very, VERY bad to have around!! Kill every one you see!!!


Yep, Carpenter Bees can be VERY destructive!

Oh, sometimes woodpeckers will raid Mason Bee houses. If they begin to be a problem, attach some hardware cloth over the front of the house, bubbling it out enough so that the Birds can't peck into the holes. Just make sure the weave of the hardware cloth is large enough for the bees to pass through (1/2 inch seems to work well for us).


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

LincTex said:


> THOSE are very, very, VERY bad to have around!! Kill every one you see!!!


I like to get a lite weight strip of wood and try and get them in flight, great training for sword fighting, really! Kind of like Luke Skywalker practicing with a light saber.


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

k0xxx said:


> Yep, Carpenter Bees can be VERY destructive!
> 
> Oh, sometimes woodpeckers will raid Mason Bee houses. If they begin to be a problem, attach some hardware cloth over the front of the house, bubbling it out enough so that the Birds can't peck into the holes. Just make sure the weave of the hardware cloth is large enough for the bees to pass through (1/2 inch seems to work well for us).


Not to go too far off the OP but this brings up another issue, flickers, dang things have taken to banging away at my soffit screens and siding under the roof eves. I've seen them bang their way through 1/2" plywood on a barn where the dumb idiot birds could have dropped down one or two feet and flown into the barn.:rantoff:


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

do an image search for "Carpenter Bee trap"

sorry for the off topic.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

ronald_stuffleb said:


> Any advise on raising mason bees? I hear they are excellent pollinators & require very little if any equipment. I hope to build some habitat this year and will be posting the results here but would love to know if anyone has a head start on me.


https://www.google.com/search?q=Mas...=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&imgdii=_

Google search for "mason bee house"

Do the Mud Daubers also use these tubes?

http://existentialgardener.com/2009...sing-recycled-materials-to-create-bee-condos/


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