It’s time to watch out for the greatest native pollinating BEE in the world, working hard in our fruit trees and gardens setting the fruit.

With the Honey Bee now in serious decline in the world,our food crops still need to be pollinated and the MASON BEE needs to be encouraged to visit our yards and pollinate to their tiny hearts content.

My Mason bee wooden block hives are coming to life now, the male bees are out first, chewing out of the outer mud cell, listening for the females in the 3rd, 4th and 5th cells, near the back of the block hive, who are also chewing the mud walls, getting ready for a grand entrance into this big flower World.

The males wait, cleaning the mud away from their faces, to look presentably to those lovely girls. Out the females come, mud all over their heads, but in minutes they clean their eyes and find the right guy, The mating is fast and the females get on with the pollinating soon after and of course those satisfied male bees in a few days pass on to the BIG HIVE in the Sky.

So what happens next, the females work very hard for about 2 months making fruit and veg. for us all to enjoy, then they get that biological urge to reproduce. I watch very carefully to try to determine when the time is right to help the last exhausted females out of the back cells of old hives. I very carefully push on the last cell wall with a cotton Q tip, breaking the seal and releasing the tired lady. Of course those rascalley males are always watching and waiting for a lady to appear.

I know it is time now to make some extra MASON BEE boxes, and wait for the lady bees to return to lay their eggs.

Hey i found some great pieces of 4×4 untreated FIR lumber on the bank of the river. The lady bees love a fir home. Time to drill the cell holes and put them up on a south facing wall. Love those MASON BEES!

Terry Slack

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