Just a quick post. Went to the countryside to witness the emergence of my bees – it’s been a long wait. I am pleased but I have had to rush to try and sort out my fresh mason bee habitats, check on the state of the blossoms, and decide when I would put out my stored 400 cocoons.
The bees were spotted on Friday, and on Saturday 20th March – when I got back – the temperatures were finally up to 17°C – I saw at least 3 males scanning and one female busy in the bricks. Will update the post tomorrow…
Update: Well it took a little while to update (apologies Omie!), partly a busy week, partly because all of the other preparations to get habitats in place and make videos that I want to put on line. So I decided to update in pictures…
The first thing I did on Saturday was to look out in the garden.
The buds on the cherry blossom are at least a couple of weeks away from opening. However, the primrose and daffodils are starting to show their glory.
So the next thing I did was to pull my shoebox out of its relatively cold storage place in the cellar – wondering if it had been wise to have put all my cocoons in one shoe box – and have a look at what was inside.
Just as a quick aside: at the end of 2009 just before I opened up the tunnels, counted the exact number of cocoons, cleaned away the pollen-mite-infested cells and placed them in the shoe-box I took this picture of my end of the 2009 season results (below).
So months after the ‘harvest’, looking into the shoe-box of stored cocoons, I noticed a male bee had emerged. I placed him on the sunny wall where there was already other activity in between the bricks. Having found no other immediate activity in the shoe-box, and knowing there was no real chance of the fruit blossoms (or dandelions) opening for at least a week, I placed it back in the dark in the cellar. The timing wasn’t right.
So I turned my thoughts turned to a more urgent problem:- of getting fresh habitats prepared (and trying to sort out some videos for people who didn’t know how to create them). Therefore I won’t write much more about this process right now as there’s a lot to be said (but on video), so I will just leave you with almost an enigmatic image.
Before I finish this post, I did get up to one more thing…
Last year I convinced a few people around me to consider putting in place solitary bee habitats. Sylvain’s project was the most successful. His living a few hundred metres away from my bees with the same style of old wood and brick buildings, made it likely it was likely that he was going to have some around himself. Happily at the end of the season, we discovered that 20 nest cells had been created in the very simple brown-paper-tubes-in-beer-can set-up that I had offered him.
On Saturday night as we watched the France-England rugby match together, he told me that he had discovered bees against the inside window of the house (which he was renovating and generally not fully heated), so we decided to investigate what was developing. In fact with my babbling on about the bee passion in my French, I believe he hadn’t understood exactly where he should store the tubes. So it was good timing that we checked on the tubes of cocoons in the chocolate box.
I had put a tissue paper bung in the tubes (which I had forgotten about) to stop them falling out after the front seal had come loose. Five bees had already emerged and gone past the tissue paper – which must have been a struggle for them. The fact that they were emerging a little early was no drama. However when we removed the bung on the last tube, a male (white tuft between the eyes) crawled out onto my finger, cleaned his wings slowly and did his poop. Less than a minute later flew up into the kitchen light.
Sylvain seemed astonished, as he stared at the remaining cocoons and repeated several times that he couldn’t believe that such creatures could come out of what looked like little lumps of mud. I think that the instant after seeing this first flight for the first time, he found the answers to why I had been talking so passionately about these bees. It was a golden moment for all three of us.
We let the bee out of the kitchen widow to fly into the night.
It was not ideal, but one bump against a wall and a crawl to safety was much better than bumping all night like a moth on the kitchen light. Plus as I realised from experiences in 2008, once the bees were out – early or not – you couldn’t really keep them inside a house. This was not because they sting (which these gentle lot don’t), it’s just they just wear themselves out crawling and bumping around. The only option would have been to put him in a box with a hole in it, hoping that he’d stay there until the outside temperature cooled his ardour. However with all the emotion that had been flying about and 9 months in a cocoon thinking about female bees, the little guy was not going to calm down soon. We toasted his health.
Oooh…very exciting! I will enjoy the update! Please post some pictures.
We are a couple weeks behind you- still very little blooming yet. But I see some willows and maples just beginning to bloom, with daffodils not far behind. I will be putting my cocoon tubes out in the boxes this weekend and let them decide when to emerge- I suspect with the temps it will be in another week or two.
I’m getting worried….did the bees emerge ok?
I just put my cocoons out in the mason nesting house today. Now to wait…
OK Omie the post is updated. Hope you like – I have resolved to make photos the central talking point whenever I can. Much easier I think to read.
Cheers, Paul.
Oh, wonderful- thank you for the fascinating update and the photos.
I love the story about the neighbor’s bee and the kitchen light.
I am relieved to know nothing terrible happened with your bees.
Today I gave a birthday gift to my best friend a few blocks away- a ‘can of nesting tubes’ with a protective wood box, and three tubes of cocoons that will hopefully hatch in the next week or so. I gave her lots of instructions and her boyfriend is going to help her put up the box tomorrow in her tiny back yard. I hope for the best.
Our rains have been finishing and next is coming a week of very warm days.
The bees came out of my condo this week. I thought it was too early. But anyway, will bees reuse that same condo?
Good question. I take it that this is your first year and you haven’t spotted any Mason bees locally before your purchase.
The answer as far as I can read the minds of the bees by their behaviour, depends on:
1. Timing - if it gets cold they may become disorientated, or more positively may back into their source tubes. You’ll then see antennae cautiously poking out testing the air temperature;
2. If male – they generally come out earlier, so if the weather is good they will remain impatiently scanning the entrances waiting for females (males often seen to have white moustaches);
3. If female – to start making nest cells they need new or clean tubes that :
- have no other non-emerged cocoons inside or they will go elsewhere,
- are not obstructed by debris – such as old cocoon shells that they can’t pull out, or possibly (unsure) pollen mites,
- have a solid and vertical back wall, against which they can start stocking pollen and nectar,
4. Positioning – The condo being in a warm sunny place (mine prefer the East), but not in a place too exposed on a wet or windy day;
5. Food – You have a preferred source of nectar readily available within the foraging distance (100 to 300m);
6. Numbers – If you have ‘enough’ starting bees so that your chances are stacked against bad weather, accidents or predator activity (birds, spiders etc.).
That’s the obvious stuff I can think of. I hope you are successful. Don’t get too anxious if you can’t see much going at the start. I find myself worrying about whether things will get going each year, but inevitably nature takes its course and the greatest pleasure and relief is to suddenly spot a female bee sealing a tube. If you are lucky, you may also find that there are already other bees and different species in your locality that take up the clean tunnels. There’s plenty of time left for this to happen.
Thanks for visiting the blog, and do come back with your successes and/or further questions.
Cheers,
Paul.
So should I clean the tubes for them and if so, how would I know when to do that? The condo was completely filled last spring. Every hole used. Or…I have a brand new condo ready to go. Should I take away the old one and put out the new one? But that again begs the question, when would I do that? Is it too much to hope that the bees will clean and refill the condo? The condo is in a great place, protected by my patio roof in a very sunny backyard filled with flowers. It was filled within one week of hanging. Thanks for your help!
angela
Angela – You cannot judge what debris is in a tube that’s just had bees emerge from it. …and you can’t usually tell whether there remains an remains a cocoon inside either unless your tubes are transparent – only visiting bees will know and make the judgement. The bees generally won’t clean the tubes if there is considerable debris, they’ll just move on as they are in a hurry.
My experience has told me that if you want to expand your population, their preferred nesting tunnels (and the ones that will receive most nest cells) will always be totally clean of infection/debris. The ones that contain the emerging cocoons have thus to be set aside and not relied upon entirely, otherwise you will have less bees next year and possibly – as they move in to the niche – more bee parasites.
So yes put a new condo out, make some paper straws or put hollow stems that you find locally http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XN88KK62hQ in place also.
Angela – You cannot judge what debris is in a tube that’s just had bees emerge from it. …and you can’t usually tell whether there remains an remains a cocoon inside either unless your tubes are transparent – only visiting bees will know and make the judgement. The bees generally won’t clean the tubes if there is considerable debris, they’ll just move on as they are in a hurry.
My experience has told me that if you want to expand your population, their preferred nesting tunnels (and the ones that will receive most nest cells) will always be totally clean of infection/debris. The ones that contain the emerging cocoons have thus to be set aside and not relied upon entirely, otherwise you will have less bees next year and possibly – as they move in to the niche – more bee parasites.
So yes put a new condo out, make some paper straws or put hollow stems that you find locally http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XN88KK62hQ in place also.
Hi Paul,
I have two species of solitary bees now coming and going into my nesting tubes- I’m very excited!
http://strumelia.blogspot.com/2010/04/solitary-bees-are-discovering-nesting.html
I am now adding a third nesting block that I had Dave make for me, with slightly smaller holes to see if I can attract some leafcutter bees.
That is so fascinating. I’ve been experimenting with creating small bee homes out of hollow bamboo, but I have no idea what I’m doing. Hopefully the bees will know what to do. Meanwhile, the carpenter bees are turning the frame of my greenhouse into pegboard.
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Pleased to read this! Thanks to the friends BigGreenIdea!
Very Cool! Paul and everybody, you should know about tunnel nest management if you don’t already. go to xerces.org for a good 6-page doc on pathogens and nest creation options / management strategies.
Plus, lease submit your photos of wild bee houses here:
Hymenopteran Housing Projects
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1407357@N20/
My partner, Rob, has created a new resource for wild bee
houses and other structures for native (mostly) solitary bees.
it is of course much more than a photo sharing site – it is structured
in an incredibly useful way.
Hymenopteran Housing Projects:
“A showcase for creative homes for bees and wasps, as well as
construction details and other information. Please post your houses
for solitary bees and wasps, and bumblebees. Please, no honey bee
hives, (there’s an excellent group here for that) although exceptions
may be made for remarkable examples. (By remarkable, we mean that if
it’s a steampunk-themed observation hive with with a 1-metre
hand-blown glass globe, and ornate brass fittings, we’d probably take
it. A Langstroth hive with a flower painted on it? Sorry.) Our aim
here is to encourage people to build homes for, and get to know the
native bees and wasps that live in their area, and have fun doing it.”
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hello
I have been following your website for a while now, I used to live in the UK, and was keeping some bees there , honey bees and solitary bees
I am now living in France.. the sunny South of France… and I have just seen my first osmia rufa here…
I was wondering how your solitary bees are doing…
also, I am trying to purchase some nesting tubes, and have found the following website
http://www.crownbees.com/store/category/mason-bee-tubes-reeds-and-trays
it’s american and they don’t actually have the same solitary bees there… do you think they would be suitable for our solitary bees?
would you have some information on your blog about how to do the tubes ourselves?
thanks again for your very good web site!
Your cocoons are terribly contaminated with lice and other dangerous beings that should have been cleaned up before storing the cocoons. Do you never clean them in the fall?
Hi Robin,
Not sure what part you are actually referring to, but what you might be seeing there is actually the darkened dessicated faeces of the larvae that they evacuate before they start the cocoon phase. In fact it is often a sign that a healthy bee cocoon is in place if you can’t tell it apart from the mud. They dissolve in contact with water if for example you wipe down a table that you have been counting cocoons on. The only ‘dangerous beings’ that I get concerned with are parasitic wasp larvae, the sticky cocoons/larvae of Cacoxenus indagator flies see around unfinished pollen, and of course pollen mites see the post – http://solitarybee.com/blog/2010/02/parasites-of-solitary-bees. I am not aware of lice causing problems, although I do see smaller insects scavenging in tunnel debris of no consequence to the bee cocoons. They are all part og the ecology.
I just ordered a Mason Bee House and need these bees to polinate my apricot, pear and apple trees next spring. When do I put this house out? Wait until next Spring or put it up now? I live in Northern Illinois so we have some cold winters. I am new at this and wonder if I have to order the bees or will they come anyway.
Thanks for your help. Phyllis Roush, Sycamore, IL 60178
Hello Phyllis,
Thanks for posting the question. There are two parts to answer your first question: If you’ve been sold a mason bee house with holes and a designed specifically for spring mason bees (i.e. depth and width of holes for Osmia lignaria or other bee species in your area) then putting it out now may only attract solitary wasps or spiders that look to share the same sorts of habitats. These will prevent bees nesting in the spring. So best wait.
The second issue concerns whether you are serious in raising and growing a good size, consistently useful population of bees (eventually a few hundred or so). If this is the case then you’ll need to focus on and understand how to disinfect the tunnels of parasites once the bee larvae begin their cocoon phase in the autumn. Hopefully you will have bought a mason bee house design which allows you to do this by accessing the tunnels in one way or another, such as in removable lamellar (grooved or routed) trays. The parasites fly larvae or mites just need to be physically eliminated or they will block bees from emerging or increasing in number and your bee population encouragement project will be severely hampered by their presence. If you have not got a tray system, and you have bought a drilled block or tough bamboo canes, you will have to paper-line them in order to access and clean the nesting tunnels after the cocoons have formed.
As far as buying bees or waiting for them, it depends where your values lie. Cocoon buying is the easier option, but I would hope that the seller is very local (you don’t want to ‘import’ non-native or unsuitable bees to your locality) + the cocoons are verified to eliminate parasites as much as possible. If not you will risk spreading parasites and endanger other local solitary bee species… and there’s some evidence that particular parasites do cross over to different species.
However if people are not into a quick fix solution, I’d encourage them to put out their Mason bee house (see how to encourage mason bees blog post) for local solitary bees who are looking for nest tunnels. They may not be around in vast quantities if at all, at the start, sometimes because historically nectar and nesting habitat was limited (which you’ll change), but at least when they arrive they are suited to local conditions. If you do it this way, your expansion project will be a victory for biodiversity and species variability.