Another update on Mason Bees – May 2023

One of the most important requirements for a Mason Bee is mud !! Where we are situated it is not a problem, we are adjacent to ditch made with clay and it is always damp. But one Mason Bee house is not anywhere near any damp clay. So we have had to introduce some. Just a lid of a plastic tub, placed on a slope. Clods of clay and water, to make a bit of a thick slurry. Remembering to keep the clay damp.

Why do they need damp clay !! They need lots of it to seal each egg from each other within the tubes, and also to seal the end of a tube.

The first attempt to make our Mason Bee house. Just strips of old flooring cut to size, and lots of 8mm holes drilled 15cm deep. They then need a red hot 8mm steel bar putting down each hole to get rid of any splinters etc. Each pack of strips being screwed together tightly, ready to be then dis-assembled in autumn to gather the cocoons.

Photos below showing the progress of 3 different sets of drinking straws

One really strange location for some of our Mason Bees, was in a hole in a galvanised farm gate. The holes (see red arrow) were used in the manufacturing process, as breather when welding or in the hot dip galvanising maybe as a means of lifting them in and out of the molten zinc tanks. We thought it a good idea to put some bamboo nesting tubes nearby.

As you can see, all the 3 tubes have been sealed with clay.

The Mason Bees nested in that location last year, and survived +30 deg C and a drought for 3 months during summer 2022, then a few days of -12 deg C during late December 2022

The below photo suprised us. In checking the contents of some Mason Bee straws/tubes, we found a few of these, Leaf-cutting Bees. These are solitary bees, the females of which use leaf pieces to construct cells within their nests. You may get confused when you see parts of leaves cut away, you may think you have some weevils. But these are good guys along with Mason Bees.