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Fruit & Orchards

More mason bee woes

10 years ago

After the squirrels found and chewed up half my bee tubes, I was glad I still had a double dozen new cocoons in the refrigerator. Until I looked at them today, thinking to put them outside, and discovered that they'd hatched inside the fridge and half of them were dead. I gathered the rest and put them outside, but there isn't a thing blooming out there and the trees won't pop for weeks.

Sure hope there are some wild ones around

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Comments (10)

Bradybb WA-Zone8
10 years ago
Yeah,I hope things work out.What temperature is your refrigerator?It seems like they should stay asleep til warmed.
I'm trying them for the first time and today a few were flying into the tubes.
The thing is though,there was about a week of warm weather in early March,the Plum trees bloomed and then colder,rainy days came and the bees missed them.They can always help with the Blueberries. Brady
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User
Original Author
10 years ago
I never heard of that happening. I've had bees hatching early before, but that's what the refrigerator is supposed to be for.

I also had some cocoons that I managed to save from the squirrels in there. When I checked them, I found them covered with pollen mites that weren't on them before.

I was trying to start over with new bees because mine kept reusing the old tubes and getting obliterated by the mites. This isn't going well this year.
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Echoes: 1) Height or width of the overall house isn't very important for the average residential gardener. What -is- important is tube diameter and the presence of orienting marks for the bees, like colored straw tips, or patches of color, or a few straws sticking out further than the rest. These bees like irregular surfaces with lots of identifying marks. They can see blue, yellow, green, and black. 2) Ideal placement is where 1) it will get sun in the morning to help the bees warm up for flight and 2) It's protected from weather. I live in Seattle and place my bees on the south side of the house because they get the most sun there (7 hours during the warmer part of the day) Our storms in Seattle come in from the south, so that also means the houses are exposed to a lot of rain and wind, which 1) encourages them to disperse (fly away and not return to nest there.) and 2)creates great moist conditions for pollen mites. That was a bad idea last spring, which was cold and wet and windy. This year I'm placing some houses on the south side of the house and some on the east side to see which perform best. The east side gets five hours of sunlight during a colder part of the day. For the ones on the south side, if we're in for stormy weather, I have two options: 1) build a more protective roof over each house or 2) Take the entire house (bees and all) and put it in a bag in the fridge for about 24 hours. SARE's guide to Alternative Pollinators says you can do this for up to five days with no harm to the bees. We'll see how that idea works out. :-)
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Comments (8)
I have had issues with GW lately failing to email me when subsequent posts to threads come up, so you're not the only one it doesn't like! The mason bees have one generation per year. It makes them so easy to have around. You certainly don't need to bring in the bee cells to your home if that's not your thing. If you don't, there could be several predators that will mine little holes into some of their tubes and attack the developing larvae. Some suggest waiting til fall to bring them in, but if I remember, I just grab the blocks that are filled up and store them in the basement once the adults are no longer visiting the blocks (usually around the beginning of June). Bringing them in greatly reduces the risk of predators. The adults are only out from late March to early June. Once you've got all your planting done for the season, but the end of May early June, then it's time to start to monitor the boxes for adult visitation drop off. Yep, we've certainly had a few bees in the house! If you forget them in the basement, they will emerge by about mid April no matter the temperatures, so you gotta get them outside by the end of March. If a couple do emerge earlier, I put the freshly emerged adults into the refrigerator with a cotton ball soaked in sugar water 2:1 water to sugar. The cold slows them down and the sugar water sustains them for a few days to a few weeks. I then put the entire little box in the fridge until it looks like Mother Nature is cooperating, and providing them with blossoms to visit. To avoid any issues, I try and put the boxes and bee cells out when the flower buds on the fruit trees start to look like they are about to open. I wish I had some pictures of the larval cells. They are like little bullets with mud on either side. As a note, the roofs on the boxes for mason bees are totally not needed, though I think the little workers appreciate a little rain cover. I've seen people stack 2x6 blocks in their yard without any rain cover or roof, and they still keep their bees happy. In the late fall, you can often find folks selling starter mason bee pupal cells on Craigslist and EBay for around 20 bucks. Of course you can purchase them from online sellers as well. I never have had that many blocks where I had a bunch of surplus bee cells, but maybe I'll build a few more boxes this fall to increase the reproduction opportunity next spring. I'm not in it to make money, but I would be willing to donate some starts to someone wanting to give them a try if they produce enough next spring. Zach, as much as you seem to like insects, this little cheap project should be on your to do list! Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions that may come up along the way. Dan
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The time is fall, say October. Mason bees have various naturally occurring enemies. Also, their survival is, in part, determined by the means they are housed -- wood block, straws, or trays. You can download "How to Manage the Blue Orchard Bee" which has all that you need to know: http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/How-to-Manage-the-Blue-Orchard-Bee
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ericwi
10 years ago
I am not an expert on refrigerators, but I do pay attention, & I have noticed that the blueberries that we grow and freeze, for our own use, do not look so good after they have been in the fridge for a month or so. Looking at them, sealed in clear plastic bags, I can see that they have thawed partially, and been refrozen, at least once, since they were originally packed. So, ever since the 1980's, our refrigerators here in the USA have had the automatic defrost feature. And of course the marketing people will tell you that this has no effect on the quality of frozen food that is subjected to the defrost cycle. So this is just a guess, but I am thinking that maybe your Mason bees were warmed up prematurely, when the 'fridge was in automatic defrost mode.
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User
Original Author
10 years ago
It's a theory, ericwi. More than I can come up with.

I don't suppose keeping the bees in the freezer would hurt them. THAT ought to keep them dormant. I'd think.

I went looking for the survivors of the new bees, but they flew off and I haven't seen them since. Certainly not near the new tubes, even tho I left the box they were in.
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milehighgirl
10 years ago
Sorry for your troubles. I hope you can find a way to succeed. Thanks for sharing because it helps all of us learn too.
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User
Original Author
10 years ago
Yes, I never could have imagined they'd hatch in the fridge. Live and learn.
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Fascist_Nation
10 years ago
They don't stay in the box. Once hatched they fly off. Eat. Eventually mate. And the girls if you are lucky will return and lay eggs in the box...that you will hopefully have protected by hardware cloth from those squirrels.
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User
Original Author
10 years ago
I've noticed that the box or tube or whatever they hatched from exerts a very strong attraction for the bees. They come back to it if they can.

Once, I had been stripping old tubes after the bees had hatched, and when I went to where the bees were active, they followed me in swarms, lighting on me so I had to brush them off, because I had the scent of the tubes on me.
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cold_weather_is_evil
10 years ago
Please tell me what these tubes are and why they can't be cleaned to the point of being unfriendly to mites. I have also heard that they should be replaced every year. Are they talking about bamboo cuts, paper straws, or something else?
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User
Original Author
10 years ago
The tubes I was using were cardboard, with plugs in the back and paper inserts. You're supposed to pull out the inserts and replace them every year. Except they're always stuck inside the tubes and too hard to remove without crushing the cocoons.

I've tried to have fresh new ones waiting for them, but the bees always prefer the old dirty tubes because they smell like home.

This was so easy the first couple of years.

This year, I got a different type of tube from Crown Bees that you're supposed to open up and remove the cocoons more easily. I just don't know if I'll have any bees to nest in them.
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