Food plants for bees

Thank you for your feedback, comments, great ideas and questions.  If you have any pictures and or stories about mason bees to pass along to other readers, email them to me and I will post them.



This white Rhododendron provides valuable pollen and nectar supplies for mason bees.  Unfortunately not all rhododendrons provide food for bees.  



One of the bloggers-Steve suggested using a large (garbage pail size) plastic container  for holding nests.  I tried this type of structure when I was using nesting straws.  The container was set up on a framework above the ground and on its side.  We cut a few holes for venting water vapour through the roof (base of container).  We also cut a few holes into the plastic at the entrance because bees would get caught in the puddles in the rim and drown.  Nest would first be completed and filled in the upper sections (where it would the warmest) and slowly the lower nesting tubes would be completed.  The system worked for a couple of seasons until we moved onto nesting trays.  Square blocks are more difficult to arrange into a round structure and we needed larger structures to hold many nests.  Sorry Steve.  I dug around for a few photos, but I think they were pre-digital.  I will dig them out at some future date.