Three come to mind...

Knox Cellars
Raintree Nursery
Various sellers on E-Bay

I have ordered from all three sources. The people at Knox, however, are real experts. A quick Google will turn up addresses.

There are two recognized subspecies of orchard mason bees (OMB, AKA blue orchard bees) that live in the eastern and western parts of North America. The eastern subspecies is called Osmia lignaria lignaria, the western subspecies is Osmia lignaria propinqua. They have distinct differences in behavior and even some slight differences in appearance. The main difference, as far as importance to you as a consumer of pollination services, is that the western subspecies is poorly adapted to eastern climate, especially humid conditions in spring and summer. The experience that most people have when they attempt to import western bees for use in the east (that's you!)is that the bees survive poorly year to year. Anecdotally, most female western OMB tend to migrate away from their emergence location, in search of lower humidity.

OMB is native over a huge area of North America, and reasonably common where there is adequate climate and suitable vegetation. Reportedly, they tend to prefer spring-blooming plants in the rose family. You can get alot of specific information about these bees from Pollinator Paradise (www.pollinatorparadise.com) or the USDA Bee Biology Lab in Logan, Utah (http://www.loganbeelab.usu.edu/). Scientists at this USDA lab have pioneered work on this species of pollinator.

You might be able to get adequate service from western OMB during a single season, maybe more. If you could find a source of eastern OMB, that would be better. Some of the vendors that have tried to sell eastern OMB's have not been successful, in part because most people nationwide buy bees from western sources (e.g Knox Cellars or Raintree). You could also start your own colony of eastern OMB by trapping them from a local wild source, but that might require a little more expertise and time than you currently have available.

You might also want to try using hornfaced bees, Osmia cornifrons. These are similar to OMB, readily available from mason bee suppliers, and probably easier to use and propagate in the eastern part of the continent.

The last time that I checked, there were a few sources of eastern OMB. Some may no longer be selling in 2005.

Mr. Raymond D. Williams
P. O. Box 1943
116 Sanitaria Springs Road
Binghamton, NY 13902-1943
(607)775-3369, rdwbmg@juno.com

Orchard Bees [ending business 2004]
Greg Dickman
4391 County Rd. 35
Auburn, IN 46706-9794
260 925-5076
website: www.orchardbees.com [not valid on 26.02.2004]
e-mail: buzzin@ctlnet.com

Nancy A. Troup
10618 Honeyfield Road
Williamsport, MD 21795
301-223-9662
beestroup@erols.com

Duane E. King
northern Maryland
e-mail: king@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us
web: http://www.bcpl.net/~clayton/bee.html

Here is a link that might be useful: good article on

Thanks for the info beefiend. I'll make sure I get the Eastern sub-species for my fruit trees here in Chicagoland.

Good luck Fonzee. If you can't get eastern OMB (it's late for this year), you might just put out shelters, with empty tubes or drilled blocks. Gradually, bees will find and colonize these blocks if there are any in your neighborhood. I started with purchased hornfaced bees and OMB 5 years ago; now I have 4 or 5 "spring" bee species and probably a dozen "summer" bee species show up each year.

Note that if you don't protect your nests after the adult bees are finished in early June, during the summer other bees and wasps will excavate the nests for their own use, and you'll lose some of your bees for the following year.

I'm interested in obtaining some bees to pollinate my fruit tree orchard. After reading a bunch of information on the internet about different bee options, I'm confused as to whether there's an advantage here on the East Coast (I'm coastal Maine) to going with the blue orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria) over the Japanese hornfaced bee (Osmia cornifrons). What I've read is that the hornfaced bee reputedly can do an even better job than the orchard mason bee with the number of blossoms they can pollinate in a given day. I'm having difficulty however finding folks in the Eastern US who are specifically using the Japanese hornfaced bee. Most folks using either seem to have chosen the orchard mason bee. Is there a reason for this? Would anyone be willing to give me the run down on the pros and cons of going with each? I'd love to give the Japanese bee a try if I can find a reputable supplier of the bees. The few whose names I've Googled seem to be out of business. I hope this isn't a bad sign. Any suggestions?

Once all of my trees are fruit bearing, I'll have approximately 7 acres that will need pollinating. It would be good to get an idea how many nesting blocks I'd need, how many bees and how far apart the blocks would need to be spaced.

Any/all feedback greatly appreciated. Thanks!

John

The Orchard Bees only forage about 100 yards from their nesting sites. Therefore, you would need about 300 female bees per acre with the nest spaced accordingly from the center of the orchard outward. The male bees are not good pollinators and they make-up a large number of the emerging spring bees. I raise and sell both species of the bees you mention to people in the eastern US and get good feedback from users on both species. The horn-faced bee seems to be a little less winter hardy than the Blue Orchard Bee. Although, I have shipped this bee and nesting materials to customers in the northern states with no reports of major weather related problems. Both species are great pollinators. Try some of both, they co-exist nicely and will share nesting holes. Good luck.

Here is my Solitary Bee results from this past Summer that I posted on another forum.
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I sent off for some Orchard Mason bees and Japanese Hornfaced bees last Summer. I had a few problems (nothing major I'm still a novice with solitary bees).
I think I bought a total of 6 or 8 "tubes" of each type of bee. I made my bee houses out of a few 4" by 4" cut to about 12" long. Then I spaced the holes as per the instructions that came with the bees and drilled them to about 8" deep, but don't quote me on the depth. Don't make the holes too deep because the depth of the holes determine the sex ratio of the larvae and you want to emphasize production of female bees. (BTW 5/16" holes might be better than 1/4") I cant' remember the correct depth to drill the holes but a Google search will tell you.
Mitch was correct when he suggested non-treated wood you don't want to poison your bees.
All in all, it was a fascinating experience to breed these bees and now I have over 70 holes plugged in my 4" by 4"s all full of mature bees waiting to hatch this coming Spring!!!
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Da Fonz

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Fonzee..

I'm in Iowa (Cedar Rapids) and just starting my research on Mason Bees... any update?

Thanks!
Elle Jaye

Things are going great with my bees. Maybe too great... My bees are breeding quite prolifically and for whatever reason most of them are JHFB instead of MB. I now have many,many 4" by 4" blocks of wood filled with overwintering bees.
I don't mind that my MB are declining or being out-competed by my JHFB, I just want bees in my backyard for my fruit trees and for my kids too watch

beefiend, can you contact me?

Dave
http://www.crownbees.com