There are straws, reeds, blocks and binders. Does anyone like one style better than the other?

rob

First, some general info: We hang our nests about 6 feet below the eaves of an exposed west wall of our brick house. This location works best for us and the bees. When nesting activity ceases we attach wire mesh in front of the houses to prevent hungry flickers from dining.

We started with the wooden nesting blocks but found that the bees were not too interested in them. The next year we hung a nesting block right next to the Knox Cellars tube and liner can homes. The tube and liner homes were completely filled, yet the blocks were just filled about 10%. After that year we no longer used the wooden blocks.

For years we were very successful with the tube/liner homes. We also had very little die back or mite issues. Then I got a job at a nursery that carried the Beediverse plastic Quicklock nests. I bought several racks of trays in early 2006. We hung a house with these right next to our ever growing collection of tube/liner nests.

The Quicklock nests were filled last, and to a capacity of about 50%. The tube nests were completely filled. When we removed and cleaned the cocoons (2006 winter) we noticed that the death rate in the tubes were the usual 5%. However, the death rate in the Quicklock nests were 30-40%.

In Feb 2007, I spoke to the Beediverse people at the NW Flower and Garden show and reported my experiences. I was pretty alarmed at the amount of death. The BD gal speculated that perhaps the plastic tray method held more moisture which may have increased fungal problems.

In 2007 we tried again with tube nests side by side with the Quicklock trays. Nearly all of the 400 tubes were filled with cocoons. The Quicklock trays were filled to about 20%. Upon removing and cleaning the cocoons, this is what we discovered: In the tube/liner nests, we saw very few mites, no parasitic wasps, and had about 5% death rate. In the Quicklock trays we saw 40% death rate, no mites, but many, many holes in the sides of cocoons. When we opened these cocoons, they were filled with tiny, dead parasitic wasps.

In conclusion, we are no longer going to use the plastic trays. I really do not know if there is a moisture/fungal problem, or some chemical offgassing from the plastic. The presence of parasitic wasps in this nest is puzzling. From now on, we will only raise our little friends in the tube/liner nests.

I would love to hear any more experiences.

I've ordered another nesting method, but it hasn't arrived yet. I've seen lots of the busy little bees working our fruit trees and figured I'd encourage them to stay and multiply.

We're in Oklahoma and there have been very few honeybees the last two years. Prior years, our yard would be full of them when the fruit trees bloom.
The peach trees, plum trees and pear trees are all pretty much done blooming now, but the apple trees are in bloom.

Thank for your post regarding your experiences. I think I'll invest in the canned tubes before next year.

I’m also a newbie to this forum and while I myself do not ‘raise’ any type of bee, this past summer I’ve turned my property into a bee and pollinator sanctuary, a place where feral honeybees, solitary bees and other pollinators can find forage, medicinal plants and, in some cases, refuge.

I had planned to set up some mason bee homes this coming spring to provide nests for those mason bees (as described in my blog - link below) hereabouts that might need them, but now I’m wondering. After reading this thread it sounds like I couldn’t just leave a populated nest out to the elements over next winter (NE Ohio)? And yet in the wild I’m sure that must be what happens. Perhaps those nests in the wild are more insulated?

I would love to learn more how I can support all types of bees and pollinators without *raising* them. The goal of my sanctuary is to lend support for as many types of pollinators as I can. What with rampant ‘development’ of fields and the growing sterile urban landscape there is such negative impact on these important insects. Any advice you could offer would really be appreciated!
Kris
P.S. Happy New Year!

For the first year I used the locking plastic trays, in the little "bee house" that I bought from beediverse. I placed it where it would get about two hours of morning sunlight, and shade for the rest of the day. It worked well for me and I'm using it again this year. I found it easy to retrieve and clean the bees in the fall. Ten bees multiplied to about forty...of which about 75% survived. This year I'm trying three different styles of houses, side-by-side, to see what works best.

1) The first is a simple redwood block with holes drilled into it...and plastic straws (from Dairy Queen) inserted into the holes. This is by far the earliest and most popular option with the bees, though I worry that I will run into problems because the plastic straws aren't breatheable. This weekend I am going to replace the emtpy plastic ones with paper ones.

2) The plastic-locking-tray bee house is also filling up rapidly. It's about 30% full now with one monthy of bee activity. The bees seem to prefer the yellow trays over the blue ones.

3) I also bought one of the PVC tube houses that are a simple plastic PVC pipe packed full of cardboard straws, all open on one side and closed on the other. So far the bees are ignoring that one completely but perhaps that will change as the season goes on and the other two houses fill up.

Location: Some local people here in Seattle advised me to move the bees to a sunny location, so they are now on a south facing wall of my house, where they get sun from about 10am-4pm. There is much more activity this year and they appear to like the heat and sunshine.

Straws: Whatever container you use, definitely insert straws of some kind if you want to remove and clean the coccoons in the fall. It's easy to slip a paper straw into a drilled hole...and then pull it out again in the fall, leaving a clean nest block for re-use next year.

The bee cocoons are easy to remove from the trays, but I didn't understand how to get the bees out of the straws until someone showed me how. You can slit the plastic straws lengthwise with a razor blade (not liking that idea) and if you use paper or card board straws, you just pry up a corner of paper and unfurl the tube, just like you would with a pop-open package of Pillsbury biscuits :-)

After cleaning mine, I kept them from September through March in small plastic tupperare containers in the back of the fridge. I'd open them from time to time to wave in fresh air but otherwise ignored them. I set some out in "late winter" in February, some out in March, and some out in early April....but I noticed there wasn't any activity until cherry trees started flowering. Next year I'll ignore the calendar and just put them out right before the cherries start to blossom.

Mason Bee Houses

I like to have interesting-looking Mason Bee setups. That's why I've made these nice cedar houses, some with copper tops. They're alot of fun. But, once built, they are also extremely useful, long-lived and practical. And I know the little guys appreciate the extra effort and curb appeal.

Each has 24 holes drilled through the 6" dimension.

I have tried both the parchment paper and cut up brown paper grocery bags.

the first year using parchment paper I had about 11 out of 24 holes filed. I got the block out late May so it was toward the end of the season. The blocks fit in a wood box that is hanging about 8' off the ground facing East. The box was removed when bees stopped using it and was left on a screen porch till Feb '09. Took the tubes out, unrolled them, discarded any cocoons that had damage like holes. I placed the cocoons in a 1/2 gallon wax paper soy milk jug with an exit hole on one end and tied on top of the Bee block holder. Out of 98 cocoons 95 had something hatch out.

This year I put out two blocks with a mix of handrolled parchment and brown paper tubes. All 48 holes were filled by bees this year and probably could have filled a good part of a third block so, I will try 4 blocks next year.

So far the bored wood block with paper tubes is working well for me.

Things I also want to try.
Scorch the front of the blocks and wirebrush a little to provide a bit rougher surface for the bees to land against. Color might also be more attractive, but no sure if tha is really true.

Try some commercial straws. Cutting, rolling and stuffing 96 tubes is a time consuming chore.

Does anyone have building instructions for other solitary bees?

Do you have any problem with the parasitic wasps? Although the bees like them, I had to stop using those cans with the cardboard tubes, because a lot of cocoons were puncture by the wasps. I am still using the brown liner by inserting them into wood predrilled 6"x 3/8" and the problem was solved. I started 10 years ago with 6 cocoons now I have about 7 to 8 thousands.

sorry for the delay in replying, don't check here as often as I should. RE: Brown versus white tubes. My inmpression was that the brown filled up first. I think the dark hole with the brown rough paper looks and feels better than the slick white parchment paper. I have the filled blocks out on the screen porch and will open them up early next year. You are right about the homemade tubes being easy to unwrap.

Will post again when I have news.

I did make up a 4 block house in addition to my 2 single block houses. I plan to put the older ones around the front of the house or take to a friends house.

Nex project is to expand the flowering plants to include more bee friendly plants.

1. Interlocking blue-and-yellow plastic trays, from beediverse.com.

2. Drilled wood block with plastic drinking straws inserted, bought from a local craigslist seller.

3. A capped PVC pipe full of cardboard straws, bought from a garden supply catalog.

All of these were placed next to each other in the same sunny south-facing location, and 40 bee cocoons were released to all at the same time (15F/25M). The bees emerged on April 1st and I took them inside on June 15th. I carried the houses carefully and stored them in the exact same position inside a cupboard in my house. That way they got the warm temperatures needed for maturation but protection from overheating in the sun and from parasites. I harvested them in the last weekend in October, cleaned them, and stored them in a plastic container in the fridge.

1. The interlocking plastic trays were full of cocoons. I had about 10% mortality with mold, mites, and wasps, but on the whole these yielded the biggest cocoons and the most females. I've used this system twice and will continue to use it. The tray system is very easy to use and I'm a big fan, even with reported problems with the plastic.

2. The plastic straws in the wood block appeared full with sealed ends. On opening them I found that they only had one or two cocoons in them, way in back. I only had a couple of parasite issues, but mostly the solid wood block appeared to offer the best protection from parasites because they couldn't easily move from tube to tube. Negatives: The bees abandoned using them after only a couple of eggs. Overall yield was low and the plastic straws were difficult to handle.

3. The PVC pipe packed with the loose cardboard tubes was the worst. It looked quite full and I was excited to open it, but I was very disappointed in the yield. There were significant problems with parasites, almost 30% mortality. It appeared that once one tube was infested, it was very easy for the problem to spread to nearby tubes because of the way they were all loosely stored next to each other. Strangely, the bees in here were much smaller overall and the M:F ratio was much much higher than the trays. All of the hives had exactly the same culture and storage, so why this hive produced such low-quality bees is a mystery. The heavy stiff cardboard tubes were also a big pain to handle and open. I won't use this system again.

Even with all of the issues described above, I still had great success. I started with 40 cocoons and three empty houses (about 100 empty tubes.) After harvesting, cleaning, and culling for mortality and size, I still ended up with 300 healthy bee cocoons, about 90 females and 210 males.

Next year I'm going to put out the plastic trays again, AND buy a large BinderBoard house from PollinatorParadise.com. And give away some bees, too!

I understand your quest, to find the best nesting block for your bees, I was going through the same experience 10 years ago when I first started taking care of them.

Been handy with tools I started to build my own bee’s condo, in a way I have tasted them all. Finally I have settled on a drilled wood tray with a non-glued paper liner for all my bees, for my experience this is the best method, easy to undo, less mould, less mites and no wasps. To my knowledge this kind of trays are not sold by any mason bee supplier in Canada or the US. As a friendly gesture to our neighbour to the south, (with your permission) I would like to send you couples of trays. Just to try them out.

Thank you for your interest. My Mason bees trays consist of a ¾" cedar board 3.5" by 6" with 5 holes Or 5.5"by 6" with 8 holes. The trays are drilled the full length of 6" by 3/8" in diameter, this will take either: the standard cardboard tube or the home made non-glued paper liner. The back opening is sealed with a reusable silicone plug that fit snug into the liner and the tray.

What are the main advantages with this system?

1-This types of trays can stand-alone, no ugly bolts are required to hold the stack together.

2-The tubes or liners will fit snug on the inner side, preventing the parasitic wasp to go between with no loss of cocoons from this parasite.

3- This system prevents also the transfer of pollen mites from channel to channels, consequently fewer mites.

4-By the use of a liner the trays will remain clean for many years, without the need of scraping and disinfecting.

To make your own paper liners is very simple and with a little practice one
can roll 50 tubes in one hour. Here is all you need: Brown wrapping
paper, a 10" dowel 5/16" or under. Cut your paper 6"1/8 long by 4 to 5"
wide, and this depends on the thickness of the paper, the number of wraps
required while insuring that the reusable silicone plugs form a tight fit.
(60 lbs brown paper work best.)

How to roll your own paper liners:

Place the dowel square over the paper and with both hands start to roll the first wrap. While holding with your left hand: with your right start the rolling motion, "roll and hold" until the paper forms a tight sleeve around the dowel, making sure not to let it go. Insert the dowel into the tray with a clockwise rotation, let go, and the tube will spring back slightly. Remove the dowel counter clockwise. Push the tube back and forth a couple of times so that both ends are properly aligned. Insert the silicone plug so it is flush with the wood and you are done.

Sorry! But I couldn’t post a picture directly to the garden web forum. Send me your Email address

Bee inspired.

please email me at kdye63 at gmail dot com and we can exchange mailing addresses. I'd like to pay postage / handling and what you think is fair for your time and material. We can discuss more on that later.
I don't have a drill press and the blocks I made to your description were a "mess".
I definitely understand the paper tube concept as I've used it before with parchment and am interested to try with the brown paper.
We can also talk more about what kind of statistics you'd be interested in comparison with the binderboards.
Thanks again.