Home For Mason Bees

I had a few spare minutes this evening so I decided to put together a house for mason bees. Mason bees are native to BC and play an incredibly important role in the environment. Something like 20% of flowering plant species (this includes the plant foods we eat) depend on the mason bee for pollination. Having blueberry bushes and apples in our yard are added incentives for making sure these little critters are local. Alarmingly, bees have had a tough go of it lately, with some populations being devasted by non-native mites.

My mason bee house is a quick’n’dirty design that required some scrap cedar and a dado blade on my table saw. I cut grooves in 1x4 x 6" planks. 6 planks were stacked, a roof was put on top, and thing are held together by an old tire tube. I used hot glue to attach a back wall. Total cost = $0. The idea is that I should be able to easily disassemble the house in the fall in order to remove the cacoons and clean out the trays. The tire tubes will of course come off easily and the back wall will come apart with a good knock from a hammer. Ideally I would have made this house a month ago but I only recently found out about mason bees. The local bees around here may already have chosen their nesting sites. Oddly enough, while I was in the garage working on the house I observed 3 bees that flew inside the garage and then exit.

In the future I may make a another one that is better built, or perhaps I will purchase one like they are shown here.

See this link to masonbeevancouver.com for more info on these little critters.