I stayed up till 3 am yesterday, watching and saving videos about Mason Bees. And today, when I checked what new videos are on TH-cam, your video was the first one on the list of recommended videos. It was good to see your video that showed no Mason Bees in the bee house. We have to be mentally prepared for that possibility. And if we do happen to be lucky enough to see some new cocoons in the nesting tubes, we will be overjoyed. I have 20 blueberry bushes growing in my backyard that bloom in May when there aren't many bees yet. When I heard on the news that this year the bee keepers in Ontario, Canada lost half of their bee colonies due to some nasty mites infestation, that made me pay more attention to the pollinators around my house. This May, I had only 2 bumblebees doing the pollination. But they are very picky. They focus on certain varieties of the blueberries and ignore the rest. That prompted me to search for Mason Bees. I pre-ordered 20 cocoons to be delivered and released in spring 2023. Wish me luck. I might invest into another bee house and order some leaf cutter bees to help with pollinating my raspberries and my veggies.
We have been raising bees for many years & have truly enjoyed the mason & leafcutter bees on many different levels. They are easy to raise & the benefits of having them in the garden are huge. Since we added them to our backyard gardens we have had bountiful harvests unlike we have seen before. Thank you for watching & we wish you much success with your gardens & bees.
Mason bees are about the most non aggressive insect in the bee/wasp family I have ever come across. If you’re working around mud where these bees are working they completely ignore you. At first I mistook them for honey bees. Very gentle and non aggressive.
We did see more this year around the gardens. They are definitely getting established here, even if not in our bees house. Thanks for watching & commenting.
That’s so great to hear! Glad you enjoyed the video. Good luck with your bees!! Thanks for commenting. More bee videos coming soon. Be sure to subscribe.
We have a new video that will be coming out soon that is a question and answer video. Hopefully that helps you with your questions on raising solitary bees. Thanks for watching.
We are so glad you found the video helpful. Thank you so much for watching & commenting. We have had great success with our leafcutter & Mason bees. They have been a great addition to our gardens. Good luck with yours. Let us know how it goes.
My Masons just arrived two days ago. I am planning on doing what you did on the video for the Leaf Cutters I cultivated last year. Thanks to your videos last year on solitary bees, it got me started on the same journey. The weather here tuned very cold the last couple days but I expect the Masons to emerge in another week to 10 days. We have a bunch of flowers blooming and have quite a bunch more we plan to plant this weekend when the cold front has passed. The newly emerged Masons will have plenty to munch on. We are surrounded by heavy clay soil but being in the desert I set up an area with the clay in holes that gets irrigated everyday so it stays moist. I have some shade cloth over it to keep direct sun off the clay otherwise it would dry out between waterings. I plan on continuing to rent Leaf Cutter and Masons from Mason Bees even though I may have plenty of cocoons I develop each year to help support them and their efforts to help grow the solitary bee community. If I get over loaded with cocoons/bees I will try and get other local gardeners on this path too. I have made several nesting blocks for both Mason and Leaf Cutters and will give a truly interested local gardener one of each to get them started if needed. Thanks again for getting me educated and motivated to do this. My first cocoon harvesting and nesting block maintenance is coming up shortly.
Wow! How exciting. Sounds like you have quite the set up. We are so happy you are having success with your solitary bees. We sure do enjoy ours and the garden is flourishing. Thanks for sharing and keep us posted on how it goes with this years bees!
It’s funny you say mud, I recently finished my house after losing my old one to a tornado, so my yard is currently nothing but mud. Hopefully planting some native flowers, and having mason bees will help pretty up the neighborhood again, hopefully more pretty than before.
I bet it’s going to be beautiful. Those bees are excellent pollinators. Glad to hear you rebuilt. Good luck to you and thanks for watching & for the comment.
Thank you so much!! We are so happy to hear you enjoyed the video. We are working on more videos & hope you come back to watch them. Good luck with your bees. We sure have been happy with ours.
Thanks for watching & commenting. The bees are very resourceful! I think they find mud wherever they can. We set it out just incase they need it. Good luck with your bees & gardens.
@@OurWeekendHomestead yup- they are! I just ordered 60 leaf cutters last week, they are arriving today. I’m probably going to wait to release until 6-1 My mason bees are active still.
Really enjoying all your bee videos so far! I'm just starting my bee journey with a set of mason bee cocoons from Crown Bees that just arrived yesterday (currently in the fridge until I hang their house) and you're giving me a great idea of what to prepare for. I was on the fence about also ordering some leafcutters, but I think you've helped make up my mind. (I am.) I'm looking forward to seeing how Round 2 of mason bees goes for you!
That’s awesome!! So glad you are enjoying our videos & getting something out of them. Thank you for sharing. Good luck with your bees! We have been seeing both Mason & Leafcutter bees on our plants already and are super excited for this years garden 🌱 🐝. We would love to hear how it goes for you.
Thank you SO MUCH for doing this video!! I finally ordered a suitable bee house from Crown Bees this season and just got my Leafcutters on Wednesday. I already see other tiny insects crawling around in the house so it was good to see a video that shows that. I was also super nervous about cleaning out the nests later this year, so seeing you do it for the first time was very reassuring. My first house was filled with various sized tubes and wasn't possible to take apart and clean and I honestly don't think I had any successful nests due to parasitic wasps. So the wasp larvae you saw weren't the parasitic ones?
Thank you for watching & commenting. We are glad you found the video helpful. We sent pictures to Crown Bees and they identified them as solitary wasp & helpful to have around. We weren’t to sure how many would hatch that we harvested from the clean out but ended up being pleasantly surprised. We are learning as we go & our gardens are flourishing with the help of the bees. Keep us posted on your solitary bee journey.
This may be a silly question, but is there a specific reason as to why you can’t just put the leafcutter bee cocoons in the hatchery straight away? Why specifically keep them in the garage until the weather gets warmer? Thank you for all of your knowledge in your videos and comments so far!!
That’s a great question. The cocoons hatch when the weather warms up. We keep them safe from predators & pests until that perfect time to ensure we get a successful hatch. For us that’s keeping them indoors in a controlled environment. So glad the videos and info have been helpful to you. We will keep putting out videos as we continue to learn & grow our gardens & bee colonies. Thanks so much for watching & commenting.
We have not had any issues of stinging from either the solitary bees or wasps. They have all been pretty elusive so we don’t run into them much. Thanks for watching.
With Mason Bees you can harvest them anytime from fall through spring. The thought is the earlier you get them out of the elements, the less likely they will be affected by pests or predators. Leafcutters get harvested in the spring. FYI we are always late but not by design. I hope this helps. Mason and Leafcutters bees have done amazing work in our garden.
Great question. Because they cause damage to the nesting blocks which is home to our Mason & Leafcutter bees, we remove them. This ensures a safe & healthy habitat for the bees. Thanks for watching!
Glad you liked it & got something out of it. We are learning & growing our colonies and will continue to share our experiences along the way. Thanks for watching & commenting!
I don't understand so the handling. . Reminding gross predators or parasites is satisfying! But in nature who is bleaching the leaf cutter? Do they not USUALLY live in the outdoors all year round? I'm not so sure mother nature knows what a 'creature comfort' is it needs it necessarily.
We follow the recommendations from Crown Bees on harvesting & keeping healthy Mason & Leafcutter bees. We have had great success doing so & our gardens are producing abundantly since adding the solitary bees. I’m sure there are lots of ways to raise solitary bees. This is what works for us & we have seen more & more bees each year. Thanks for watching.
I stayed up till 3 am yesterday, watching and saving videos about Mason Bees. And today, when I checked what new videos are on TH-cam, your video was the first one on the list of recommended videos. It was good to see your video that showed no Mason Bees in the bee house. We have to be mentally prepared for that possibility. And if we do happen to be lucky enough to see some new cocoons in the nesting tubes, we will be overjoyed. I have 20 blueberry bushes growing in my backyard that bloom in May when there aren't many bees yet. When I heard on the news that this year the bee keepers in Ontario, Canada lost half of their bee colonies due to some nasty mites infestation, that made me pay more attention to the pollinators around my house. This May, I had only 2 bumblebees doing the pollination. But they are very picky. They focus on certain varieties of the blueberries and ignore the rest. That prompted me to search for Mason Bees. I pre-ordered 20 cocoons to be delivered and released in spring 2023. Wish me luck. I might invest into another bee house and order some leaf cutter bees to help with pollinating my raspberries and my veggies.
We have been raising bees for many years & have truly enjoyed the mason & leafcutter bees on many different levels. They are easy to raise & the benefits of having them in the garden are huge. Since we added them to our backyard gardens we have had bountiful harvests unlike we have seen before. Thank you for watching & we wish you much success with your gardens & bees.
Mason bees are about the most non aggressive insect in the bee/wasp family I have ever come across. If you’re working around mud where these bees are working they completely ignore you. At first I mistook them for honey bees. Very gentle and non aggressive.
They are amazing creatures. Such a welcome addition to our gardens. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Hopefully you have more luck with the mason bees this year!
We did see more this year around the gardens. They are definitely getting established here, even if not in our bees house. Thanks for watching & commenting.
😮 I learned so much from this. My mom purchased a bee hotel but we never cleaned it out. Thanks for showing me how to.
That’s so great to hear! Glad you enjoyed the video. Good luck with your bees!! Thanks for commenting. More bee videos coming soon. Be sure to subscribe.
Loving all things solitary bees! Can't wait to see mason bee stuff!
Thanks for watching!!
Thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching!! Glad you liked it.
i dont undestand bee hotel. but i love it this result.
We have a new video that will be coming out soon that is a question and answer video. Hopefully that helps you with your questions on raising solitary bees. Thanks for watching.
Nice presentation. Nice background music. This is our first time getting bees. Very helpful close-ups. Thanks!
We are so glad you found the video helpful. Thank you so much for watching & commenting. We have had great success with our leafcutter & Mason bees. They have been a great addition to our gardens. Good luck with yours. Let us know how it goes.
Looking forward to your cocoon harvesting update.
My Masons just arrived two days ago. I am planning on doing what you did on the video for the Leaf Cutters I cultivated last year. Thanks to your videos last year on solitary bees, it got me started on the same journey. The weather here tuned very cold the last couple days but I expect the Masons to emerge in another week to 10 days. We have a bunch of flowers blooming and have quite a bunch more we plan to plant this weekend when the cold front has passed. The newly emerged Masons will have plenty to munch on.
We are surrounded by heavy clay soil but being in the desert I set up an area with the clay in holes that gets irrigated everyday so it stays moist. I have some shade cloth over it to keep direct sun off the clay otherwise it would dry out between waterings.
I plan on continuing to rent Leaf Cutter and Masons from Mason Bees even though I may have plenty of cocoons I develop each year to help support them and their efforts to help grow the solitary bee community. If I get over loaded with cocoons/bees I will try and get other local gardeners on this path too. I have made several nesting blocks for both Mason and Leaf Cutters and will give a truly interested local gardener one of each to get them started if needed.
Thanks again for getting me educated and motivated to do this. My first cocoon harvesting and nesting block maintenance is coming up shortly.
Wow! How exciting. Sounds like you have quite the set up. We are so happy you are having success with your solitary bees. We sure do enjoy ours and the garden is flourishing. Thanks for sharing and keep us posted on how it goes with this years bees!
It’s funny you say mud, I recently finished my house after losing my old one to a tornado, so my yard is currently nothing but mud. Hopefully planting some native flowers, and having mason bees will help pretty up the neighborhood again, hopefully more pretty than before.
I bet it’s going to be beautiful. Those bees are excellent pollinators. Glad to hear you rebuilt. Good luck to you and thanks for watching & for the comment.
Your videos are really inspiring us to start harvesting Bees. Thank you very much for your efforts in this video making. Please keep doing great job.
Thank you so much!! We are so happy to hear you enjoyed the video. We are working on more videos & hope you come back to watch them. Good luck with your bees. We sure have been happy with ours.
@@OurWeekendHomestead Sure, we will come back to watch more videos to your channel.
👌🐝🍃
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for watching!
thankyou for your video, really interesting to see what was inside the tubes - did you find out what the live white larvae was?
Glad you liked the video. Those larvae were solitary wasps that made their home in our bee house. Thanks for commenting.
I bought some mud as well, they haven’t even went to it. My MB are finding mud elsewhere
Thanks for watching & commenting. The bees are very resourceful! I think they find mud wherever they can. We set it out just incase they need it. Good luck with your bees & gardens.
@@OurWeekendHomestead yup- they are! I just ordered 60 leaf cutters last week, they are arriving today. I’m probably going to wait to release until 6-1
My mason bees are active still.
Really enjoying all your bee videos so far! I'm just starting my bee journey with a set of mason bee cocoons from Crown Bees that just arrived yesterday (currently in the fridge until I hang their house) and you're giving me a great idea of what to prepare for. I was on the fence about also ordering some leafcutters, but I think you've helped make up my mind. (I am.) I'm looking forward to seeing how Round 2 of mason bees goes for you!
That’s awesome!! So glad you are enjoying our videos & getting something out of them. Thank you for sharing. Good luck with your bees! We have been seeing both Mason & Leafcutter bees on our plants already and are super excited for this years garden 🌱 🐝. We would love to hear how it goes for you.
Thank you SO MUCH for doing this video!! I finally ordered a suitable bee house from Crown Bees this season and just got my Leafcutters on Wednesday. I already see other tiny insects crawling around in the house so it was good to see a video that shows that. I was also super nervous about cleaning out the nests later this year, so seeing you do it for the first time was very reassuring. My first house was filled with various sized tubes and wasn't possible to take apart and clean and I honestly don't think I had any successful nests due to parasitic wasps. So the wasp larvae you saw weren't the parasitic ones?
Thank you for watching & commenting. We are glad you found the video helpful. We sent pictures to Crown Bees and they identified them as solitary wasp & helpful to have around. We weren’t to sure how many would hatch that we harvested from the clean out but ended up being pleasantly surprised. We are learning as we go & our gardens are flourishing with the help of the bees. Keep us posted on your solitary bee journey.
This may be a silly question, but is there a specific reason as to why you can’t just put the leafcutter bee cocoons in the hatchery straight away? Why specifically keep them in the garage until the weather gets warmer? Thank you for all of your knowledge in your videos and comments so far!!
That’s a great question. The cocoons hatch when the weather warms up. We keep them safe from predators & pests until that perfect time to ensure we get a successful hatch. For us that’s keeping them indoors in a controlled environment. So glad the videos and info have been helpful to you. We will keep putting out videos as we continue to learn & grow our gardens & bee colonies. Thanks so much for watching & commenting.
Fascinating !!
They truly are! Thanks for watching!
Has the bird box help keep the hummingbirds out?
Yes, we see them fly around it but the are unable to get to the nesting blocks & reeds. Thanks for the question.
Do the solitary wasps sting?
We have not had any issues of stinging from either the solitary bees or wasps. They have all been pretty elusive so we don’t run into them much. Thanks for watching.
Hi, How do you know when it’s time to open everything up and clean out the compartments?
With Mason Bees you can harvest them anytime from fall through spring. The thought is the earlier you get them out of the elements, the less likely they will be affected by pests or predators. Leafcutters get harvested in the spring. FYI we are always late but not by design. I hope this helps. Mason and Leafcutters bees have done amazing work in our garden.
You said the larva you found was solitary wasps. What did you do with them? Will they die since the nest has been opened?
Great question. Because they cause damage to the nesting blocks which is home to our Mason & Leafcutter bees, we remove them. This ensures a safe & healthy habitat for the bees. Thanks for watching!
i already subscribe
Thanks for subscribing. Glad you found us. Enjoy our videos.
How does the probing not pierce a cocoon?
Good question. We gently insert the skewer and if we feel any resistance we stop. Works great & no issues thus far. Thanks for watching & commenting.
Watched the video. I learned something. I enjoyed it. Your title was toodramatic for the content.
Glad you liked it & got something out of it. We are learning & growing our colonies and will continue to share our experiences along the way. Thanks for watching & commenting!
I don't understand so the handling. . Reminding gross predators or parasites is satisfying! But in nature who is bleaching the leaf cutter? Do they not USUALLY live in the outdoors all year round? I'm not so sure mother nature knows what a 'creature comfort' is it needs it necessarily.
We follow the recommendations from Crown Bees on harvesting & keeping healthy Mason & Leafcutter bees. We have had great success doing so & our gardens are producing abundantly since adding the solitary bees. I’m sure there are lots of ways to raise solitary bees. This is what works for us & we have seen more & more bees each year. Thanks for watching.