Cleaning solitary bee cocoons with sand
Just saw these two videos (part I and II) today, by Norm (the father and inventor) and his son Gordon of Hutching Bee Services (YouTube channel). (Update: their new and fascinating site is here)
Rather than using a wet disinfectant (bleach and water) method of ridding cocoons of mites which they suggest is less effective, and has an inherent risk of humidity and mould problems, they use a sand scouring method. They:
- gently scrape their cocoons from the solitary bee blocks/condos
- sieve out most of the larger debris of mud cell walls as well as loose excrement and unconsumed pollen,
- roll the cocoons in a jar of fine sand to scour off the residual mites, and
- use a finer sieve with residual sand being swept of the cocoons with a soft brush.
The sand is later ‘cooked’ clean to kill off the mites so that they can re-use it again. The cocoons are then placed in a box on a a corrugated cardboard tray with small open holes to allow them to fly off (and also not be picked off by birds).
Here are is the first video (9 mins) where we begin to see the large numbers of bees that they obtain each year.
Some of the nest traps are very long and it’s interesting to hear them talk about the ideal length of tunnels that they’ve tested in this first video. They call it the “Hutchings Peekaboo system” where they have covered the detachable router-cut blocks in perspex flaps so they can look inside. The solitary bee cocoons are scraped out with a soft-blade scraper that apparently they made themselves. They found that the 12 to 15 inch trays produce the “most bees per inch”. [I will have to try this]. They have also played around with different variables of width and lengths – 5/16ths of an inch (7mm) they found was the optimum width, and just under 12 inches (29.5cm) was optimal to get the most female bees.
…and here’s the second one (8mins), where they show the filtration and scouring methods.
Anyway I hope you find these two videos fascinating as I have. If its of interest to you, here are some close-ups of the solitary bee mites (or at least their debris) and the larvae of the parasitic fly Cacoxenus indagator.
Please feel to share your comments about the Hutchings videos on their channel, and/or other cleaning methods below. Would be interested in your thoughts/methods for keeping your mason bee populations pest free.
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:28 pm
[...] Solitary Bees Orchard Mason Bees and other native bees « Cleaning solitary bee cocoons with sand [...]
March 13th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Hey i am norms grandson and that’s the video i filmed and edited. Glad you enjoyed the work we did. Sorry for the bad quality. If we make some more videos i will actually get a good HD camera.
March 13th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Hi Martin,
The videos were great… don’t worry about the quality the message was clearly there! Anyway, new camera or not, would love to see you filming the activities of your bees when they emerge and start nesting again. With the quanty of bees that Norman has, it must be quite a sight. I look forward to seeing what you do on the you tube channel, and would be very happy to show more on this site.
Cheers,
Paul.
March 15th, 2010 at 1:29 am
hello
I am using some cardboard tubes that I bought from the UK, for my red mason bees
I am getting confused, are you dealing with your “osmia rufas” the same way as you are dealing with “osmia ignaria ” (orchard mason bees)…
the videos are related to ignaria if I am not mistaking
when I was in the uk, I used to have a lot of red mason bees over the years…
March 16th, 2010 at 3:01 am
Although it is not specified anywhere that I can remember, the videos are probably related to Osmia Lignaria (I wonder if Gord, Norm or Martin could confirm this?)
The issue and the post is about physically cleaning off the outside of the large quantities of cocoons of pollen mites. I don’t believe it matters whether your bees are Osmia cornuta (my main population) or Osmia rufa (red mason bees – more often in Europe) or Osmia lignaria (blue orchard mason bees – seen more in North America); the pollen mites which dwell on the flowers that they pollinate will year-in, year-out get brought back by the bees and repeatedly infect, eat pollen stocks and starve out the solitary bee larvae trying to feed in their cells – leading to tunnels becoming no longer viable.
I haven’t yet used the Hutchings sand cleaning method on my bees as when I found their videos in February, I believed it too late in the season to try out on my 400 cocoons which I have mostly cleaned by hand. I believe they are already adults and capable of being stressed and worn down (as I believed happened to my smaller population in 2008). However I do believe the gentle scouring of cocoons by sand makes a lot more sense than bleaching and the risks of humidity associated with it, so I will try it out in the autumn.
So Thierry1968, do you disinfect your cocoons and have you been using another method to disinfect your them?
May 9th, 2010 at 9:09 am
What I missed is how and what method do they clean the wood containers the cocoons were in after they were removed ?
Do they sell the tools used that seemed to work well removing them?
Do they sell the wood trays and if so where?
May 9th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Hi Marylou – thanks for your questions,
I gathered that they lightly bleach or use a sterilizing solution between seasons for the trays… they are dry well before the new season. I also gathered that they made some of the tools themselves, but something like an old-style potato peeler is the correct shape to run down any curved tray channels.
I am not sure if Gord sells the trays themselves right now – I know he teaches people in his local area with workshops. However I would also recommend Andrew’s reclaimed wood products here at Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/44977390/mason-bee-nest-orchard-bee-stacked-tray – he’s a great craftsman.
May 15th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
We made our own curved tools for the curved channels and a flat blade for the square dato’d channels. An old paring knife or thin putty knife ground down to the right width is what we use. Yes, we bleach the condo trays between seasons and dry thoroughly. Also a couple of coats of floor varnish (water-based) is applied to the channels with no ill-effects. Our website is at http://sites.google.com/site/hutchingsbeeservice/ and yes we do sell and mail out the individual trays, but if you want an idea of how to make, give us a tap back or check out our website regarding Creative Commons Licencing. Give us credit and don’t do a commercial venture on our years of research and just copying us, is mainly what we ask
May 16th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Aha Gord! – I knew I wasn’t to far off the mark in respect of cleaning the trays and tools.
Good to see you have the site up and running. Fascinating information that you have gathered there, and yes years of work and expertise in evidence. I was very fascinated to see the open trays where they make the entire cells themselves, and yes perhaps they are precursors to social/eusocial bees. Does this mean that for mason bees it doesn’t matter so much if the tubes are quite large in diameter, or is this just for a certain type of mason bee?
I will put your link in behind the article reference above to your service.
Cheers, Paul.