Rent Mason Bees’ Mason bee kits ($60) include a Mason bee house, nesting block, bag of clay, pollinator flower seeds, and 50 to 60 Mason bee cocoons sent in spring.

Nail it on. This is the structure that your bee nest tubes will go into. How to make the nest tubes To make the simplest nest tubes, you can drill holes in blocks of 2-by-4 with a 7/16-inch drill bit.

When mason bees emerge in late March they will gather pollen and lay eggs in these nesting tubes. The bees are active through the spring and are much more efficient pollinators than honey bees.

What you need to support mason bees 1. A generous pollen source within 300 feet of your bee house. 2. A source of clay-based mud.

If you don’t want to build your own mason bee nesting home, you can also purchase nesting tubes and blocks from some on-line sources. One of the best is Knox Cellars ( https://www.knoxcellars.com ).

If you want to encourage mason bees to live in your garden, provide them with the nesting boxes they prefer. Hollow reeds, cardboard tubes, paper straws, or tunnels in wood are best.

It’s easy to find adorable mason bee “hotels” with stacked, bee-sized nesting tubes hanging in yards around Clark County, where busy mason bees can lay their eggs for next spring’s generation.

I worry about my little bees until I see them chew out of their nesting tubes in the spring. I talked about how mason bees and all kinds of bees survive winter with my friend Brandon Hopkins.

Jack Clark houses his orchard mason bees in pieces of untreated, 8-inch fir board, in which he drills 3/8 inch diameter holes, starting from the narrow edge. Into the holes he slides special paper ...

Rent Mason Bees’ Mason bee kits ($60) include a Mason bee house, nesting block, bag of clay, pollinator flower seeds, and 50 to 60 Mason bee cocoons sent in spring.