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.

One mason bee can pollinate 2,000 blossoms in a single day. She brings pollen back to her nest and deposits it at the back of the tube, making a mound on which she will lay one egg.

Mason bees nest in tube-shaped areas, so building them a home can be pretty simple. All they need is some tunnels drilled through a block of wood and a roof to keep the entrance dry.

Hunter says there is also an "only one bee mentality, and this is helping create the pollination mess we find ourselves in today." Mason bees are among the 4,000 types of bees native to the U.S.

Mason bees emerge from their nests as soon as temperatures are reliably above 50 degrees and as the early fruit trees start blooming. That means you need to have nesting spaces ready for them by then.

Michigan State University has an extension publication, “Building and Managing Bee Hotels for Wild Bees.” Although wild bees do not need human help, they accept hollow tubes provided by orchard ...

You’ll find some great info here on the year-round care of mason bees, including storing the nesting tubes and blocks and harvesting the cocoons. The best place to put a mason bee house Mason ...

Instead, mason bees, most commonly the native blue orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria), look for cracks and crevices that fit their need for small spaces where they crawl in and lay eggs. They ...

Raising mason bees is fun, perfect for backyard gardeners, school gardens and hobbyists. But in the larger picture, they are vital. 33 percent of our diet is dependent on bee pollination ...

Mason bees are extremely docile, and customers don’t have to worry about getting stung, the company notes, pointing to testing that shows that mason bee bodies don’t contain any venom: “This ...