By now your mason bees have finished their pollinating and nesting for the season. We hope you’ve had success with them and find that they plugged many, if not all, of the nesting holes in your bee house — and that your harvest of fruits and berries will benefit!

You should next take a couple of steps to help protect them for next year.

1 — Destroy your remaining cocoons including any cocoons from which mason bees failed to emerge. This is important to do right away. Unopened cocoons may be a Trojan horse, harboring tiny parasitic wasps that are just about to emerge looking for mason bee larvae to infect. Destroying any unopened cocoons will prevent this.

2 — Leave your bee house in place for now. In July, you can move it to a secure place to protect it from birds or other critters. But keep it where it’s subject to ambient outdoor temperatures. Wrapping a breathable fabric or fine mesh around it will help keep parasites and predators out.

What are your mason bees are doing right now? Mason bee larvae are finishing up the meal of pollen and nectar gathered by their mother. When done, they spin a cocoon around themselves. Over summer and early fall, safe inside their cocoons, they metamorphose into adult bees, and remain in that state until their biological clock prompts them to emerge and go to work next spring.

Watch for an email later this summer about a mason bee harvest workshop in the fall. Mason bee stewards will gather to open the mason bee nests, extract and clean cocoons, prepare them for winter storage, deal with pests or parasites we find, and continue learning about these amazing pollinators. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to contact our mason bee guide Stephen Anderson with any questions, smanderson100@earthlink.net.

Summer Mason Bee Updates