Mason Bees

If you don't already know about Mason Bees...you're going to want to! Mason bees are excellent pollinators, much more efficient than your average honey bees. While they don't make honey, like honey bees do, they can help you increase your yields of fruit, berries, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, tomatoes and the like in your garden. They also don't sting, so that's a nice benefit if you happen to be allergic. The males hatch first and wait around for the females to hatch. Then the females hatch and mate with the males. Then, the males die. :( Ah well...their job is done! lol. The females then go about pollinating your garden for you. They lay their eggs in the tube then pack the ends to close them. Not only do we have some neat Mason bee houses at NHG, we also have the bees! They come as eggs, six per tube, and we're keeping them in our insect cooler. You can buy one or two tubes and insert them into your bee house. Very cool.