Mason Bees!

I don't remember where I left off on the Saga of the Mason Bees, so I'll just pick up with today's discovery. We'd put our mason bee and leafcutter bee houses up on a freestanding board out by the garden, because we had no really good place to put them on any of our buildings. By mid-June, I had one hole on the mason bee house filled and one started, and then nothing. I assumed the mason bee who was busy filling those two holes probably met with an untimely death. Not long after, the one hole she had managed to fill was torn open by something, so no bees in there at all. Bummer. I'd intended to take down the houses and store them until next spring, but never got around to it.

Turns out, my procrastination was a good thing in this case. I happened to be out watering some nearby plants, and glanced up at the mason bee house, contemplating moving it today. Then I noticed a full hole. And another. And another. Six altogether, which probably means a single mason bee discovered the house. Neat! No holes filled in the aphid eater wasp house, but there are three holes filled on the leafcutter bee house. Neat again!

This means I need to let the houses just sort of hang out until about October, when I'll bring them into the garage for the winter. By then, the little bees should be pupated, and it should be before the brunt of the winter storms. (Unfortunately, the best, sunniest place in the yard is also the one that takes it full-on from winter storm winds, which almost always approach us from the south.)

Go bees!