Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Time to release the bees! Now that it's warm and there are flowers to pollinate, it's time to put out the mason bees. So I attach the release box that's been in the fridge all winter to the bottom of the nesting box (I use velcro), and hang the whole thing.....
...and put them on the side of the house that's facing east, between the house and garage. Last year, I had them in a different spot...
....they were on the corner, where you see this nesting platform. However, an eastern phoebe built a nest atop the bee box. So this year, I'm trying to give her a better nesting spot so she'll leave my bees alone. Anybody wanna give me odds that she nests on the bee house again, anyway?

6 comments:

chuck b. said...

Darn those pesky eastern phoebes!

lol

lisa said...

Yea...she didn't seem to keep the bees from filling their larvae tubes or anything, but I figured it didn't help, and she was pretty messy.

Annie in Austin said...

Sort of like having really messy neighbors living in the apartment upstairs?

Thanks for the photos, Lisa. I like seeing how things are done... using velcro to attach the release box was so interesting and so logical!

Annie

lisa said...

Thanks, Annie!

Ki said...

Oh, cool. I read about mason bees which people were using to pollinate crops because of the decline of honeybees. I even downloaded instructions to make the nests but didn't get around to doing it. Apparently native bees are not given the credit that the more obvious honeybees get, even if they (natives) do more of the work than honeybees. Glad to see someone is giving them care and shelter.

lisa said...

Ki, you should try it sometime...they're very easy!