Everything You Need to Know About Keeping Mason Bees

We all know that bees are great pollinators, and that they’re a vital part of food production, both for large-scale and home-scale farmers and gardeners. Honey bees get most of the attention, but there are all kinds of bees that are great pollinators and serve different purposes in the garden. Not to mention, as concerns about declining honey bee populations continue to grow, many gardeners and homesteaders are looking for alternative pollinators to support their crops. One of the best-kept secrets in the world of pollination is the humble mason bee. These efficient, non-aggressive pollinators are easy to care for and can significantly boost the productivity of your fruit trees, berry bushes, and early-flowering crops.

Read on to learn everything you need to know about keeping mason bees to increase pollination and improve fruit production in your garden, orchard, or homestead.

What Are Mason Bees?

Mason bees are small bees that almost look more like flies than other types of bees, like honey bees or bumble bees. They are are solitary bees that do not live in nests or have a social order or hierarchy like other bees. Instead, each female mason bee is also her own queen and worker, building individual nests and providing food for her larvae without the need for a colony structure. They lay their eggs in small holes, such as hollow reeds or pre-made bee houses, which they seal with mud. They are called “mason bees” for this reason: because they are like miniature stone masons, using mud and clay soil for building material.

Mason bees are also incredibly efficient pollinators due to their unique foraging behaviour. In fact, mason bees can be up to 100 times more efficient than honey bees when it comes to pollination. This is because, while honey bees collect nectar and transfer pollen incidentally, mason bees specifically gather pollen for their larvae. Studies suggest that a single mason bee can pollinate as many flowers as 100 honey bees, making them an invaluable resource for gardeners and orchardists alike.

Mason bees are most active in the spring, and are particularly beneficial for pollinating fruit trees and berry bushes, which bloom at this time of year. They go dormant by early to mid-summer: once the female mason bees have finished laying their eggs and mudded up their nesting holes, the adult bees stop pollinating and die off.  

Do Mason Bees Make Honey?

Unlike honey bees, Mason bees do not make honey, nor do they produce beeswax or other bee byproducts that honey bees are known for. As far as gardening and homesteading go, mason bees are kept specifically for their ability to pollinate crops that flower early in the spring—specifically fruits like apples, apricots, cherries, nectarines, peaches, plums, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. 

Mason bees are also much easier to keep than honey bees, requiring very little in the way of equipment and beekeeping skills. All you need is a mason bee house—which can be purchased or easily built—some paper tubes or nesting blocks, and a few mason bee cocoons. Since mason bees are docile and non-aggressive, you don’t need any protective equipment to handle them and don’t need to worry about children being stung. They’re also perfect for a small space because they don’t require much in the way of housing or setup. 

That being said, mason bees and honey bees get along just fine, so if you’re already a beekeeper, you can still introduce mason bees to your property and benefit from their superior early-season pollination without worrying about how they will interact with and affect your honey bees, or vice versa.

Overall, mason bees are easy to keep and don’t require that you have any experience with traditional beekeeping. However, a bit of knowledge and skill is required to ensure healthy bees that continue to multiply and pollinate year after year. Here’s everything you need to know to properly keep and care for Mason bees in your garden.

How to Get Started With Mason Bees

You’ve probably seen mason bee houses (also called “insect houses” or “mason bee hotels”) for sale at places like Costco, Home Depot, or even the dollar store. Many people purchase these houses expecting that to be enough to attract mason bees to their garden, but there are two major problems with these bee houses: the first is that there is no guarantee that erecting a bee house alone will attract mason bees to your garden, and the second is that there is usually no way to open these houses up and remove the cocoons from the nesting tubes, which can result in pests and diseases that ultimately destroy the mason bee larvae. Additionally, cheaply-made mason bee houses can sharp edges or splinters that can harm the bees or tear at their wings. All in all, they’re no bueno.

In order to properly keep and care for mason bees, you need to purchase or build a mason bee house that you can take the nesting tubes out of, and use cardboard tubes or nesting blocks that can be opened up so that you can remove the cocoons and clean them off before the Mason bees emerge in the spring. To guarantee success, you should also invest in a few mason bee cocoons rather than hope to attract them out of thin air. While you might end up attracting mason bees to your garden, you might also end up attracting other insects like wasps.

There are a number of places you can purchase mason bee cocoons and supplies from. Typically you will order online and the cocoons will be shipped to you in late winter/early spring. We are lucky to live a short drive away from one of the top mason bee suppliers in North America, so we got or first batch of cocoons from Gord Cyr at Mason Bee Central. They have continued to multiply over the years, and after just four years, we are almost at the point where we have extras to sell!

We also got our nesting block from Mason Bee Central. While we used cardboard tubes with paper liners for the first few years, every time you cut into the paper liners to remove the cocoons, that liner is garbage. And the cardboard tubes themselves degrade over time, especially if they get wet. By using a removable nesting block that is designed to open up (like the ones Gord makes and sells), we can continue to use it year after year.

Alternatively. you can also use hollow reeds, which you can also get from Mason Bee Central. These natural lakebed reeds are easy to open up at harvest time, not to be confused with the more commonly sold bamboo reeds, which are all but impossible to open without damaging the cocoons.

We put the nesting block inside a mason bee house that my husband, Ryan, built out of a few pieces of scrap wood. We painted it with some leftover paint from our chicken coop, but of course you can just leave it without painting it if you make your own. If you’re not particularly handy, you can purchase a mason bee house from Mason Bee Central along with your cocoons and nesting block.

Finally, you’ll need some sort of box to put the cocoons in before they emerge in the early spring. This “emergence box” provides a safe and controlled environment for the bees to hatch in and emerge from in the spring, after you’ve removed the cocoons from the nesting holes and cleaned them off. We built our own emergence box that can be opened by us and has a small hole drilled into it where the bees can emerge from when they’re ready. Ryan built a special section for the emergence box in the lower part of our mason bee house.

How to Care for Mason Bees

Once you’ve got everything outlined in the section above (mason bee house, nesting blocks or tubes, cocoons, and an emergency box), you’ve got everything you need to get started with mason bees.

To begin, hang your mason bee house in a protected area in or near your garden. If possible, keep it somewhat sheltered from harsh winds and direct sun. We usually hang ours from our fence inside our garden close to our hazelnut tree, which helps shade the house from the hot afternoon sun. This year we’ve hung it from the fence on the outside of our garden facing north, right above our blueberry and strawberry plants.

Place  the nesting blocks or tubes in the mason bee house and then place your cocoons in the emergence box. If you don’t have a designated space for your emergence box in your mason bee house, place it nearby in a safe place where it’s not going to get knocked down or blown over.

That’s all the hands-on work you’ll need to do until the bees go dormant again in the summer. Once they emerge from their cocoons, they’ll take care of themselves while also pollinating your garden and laying new eggs in each nesting hole, which will hatch the following year, ensuring you have a sustainable supply of mason bees to pollinate your fruit trees and berry bushes each spring.

While mason bees are more or less hands-off, they will benefit from having three key things nearby:

1. Clay-based soil for mudding up their nesting holes: You can purchase a mud box or mason bee clay for your bees if your soil is on the sandier side.
2. A pollen source: In addition to fruit trees and berries, flowers like dandelions and spring flowers like daffodils, crocuses, and lilacs are another fantastic food source for mason bees.
3. Water: For drinking and cooling down in—a bird bath or a tray of water near the mason bee house works great, ideally with a few rocks placed inside for the bees to safely land on and drink from without drowning in the water.

How to Harvest and Store Cocoons

At the end of the season, harvest mason bee cocoons to prevent parasites and diseases from taking hold. This is an important step to ensure you’ll have a healthy supply of mason bees the following year.

You’ll notice that most of the nesting tubes have been sealed with mud and mason bee activity has died down sometime around early to mid-summer. You should leave the mason bees outdoors in their nesting tubes until late fall—around October or November—so that the larvae and cocoons have time to fully develop. We usually wait until after our first frost, which is usually sometime in mid to late October.

To harvest mason bee cocoons, open the nesting tubes or boxes, remove the cocoons, and clean them gently in cool water. Clean out any other bugs and debris from the nesting blocks or tubes and store them safely before putting them back outside in the spring.

Let the cocoons air dry well and then store them in a breathable container (or in the emergence box) in a cold place until spring—we store ours in the small “beer fridge” that Ryan keeps out in his workshop. An unheated garage works well too, so long as the temperature stays relatively cold. You don’t want to store the cocoons anywhere where the temperature fluctuates too much, as warmer temperatures can signal to the bees to hatch too early.

When to Release Mason Bee Cocoons

In early spring, when temperatures begin to rise and your fruit trees and berry branches are just beginning to bud out, place your Mason bee cocoons outside near their nesting site. The warming temperatures will signal the bees to emerge naturally, and as they do, they will immediately begin foraging and seeking nesting sites. Ensuring a steady supply of early-blooming flowers nearby will help support them as they start their season.

If possible, avoid releasing them during really cold snaps or heavy rain, as this can slow their emergence and decrease their survival rates. A few years ago we had a very wet spring, and the mason bee population in our area saw one of the sharpest declines ever. In turn, fruit tree harvests in our area were also dismal that year. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes and there’s little you can do about it, as was the case for us during the spring of 2022. Luckily, the mason bees that survived were able to lay enough eggs that by now, three years later, the mason bee population has rebounded and the bees (and fruit trees) are thriving once again!

Where to Get Mason Bees

Mason bees are native to most of North America, except for desert and Arctic regions. If they are already present in your area, simply setting up a nesting site can attract them. However it’s wise to invest in a few cocoons to ensure a strong, healthy community of mason bees on your property. As mentioned already, you can order mason bee cocoons and supplies from a number of reputable suppliers, including Mason Bee Central.

You can also order mason bee cocoons and supplies from West Coast Seeds, which is where I get most of my seeds from here on the west coast of Canada. In the U.S., you can order mason bee cocoons and supplies from Crown Bees. 

Final Thoughts: Why Choose Mason Bees for Your Garden?

To recap, here are all the reasons you should consider adding mason bees to your garden or orchard:

• Superior Pollination: Mason bees are significantly better pollinators than honey bees. Their hairy bodies collect pollen more efficiently, and they transfer it directly to the flowers they visit.
• Non-Aggressive Nature: Unlike honey bees, mason bees rarely sting. Even if provoked, their sting contains no venom, making them an excellent choice for households with children and pets.
• Low Maintenance: Keeping mason bees requires minimal effort compared to maintaining a honey bee hive. They require no protective gear, no complex equipment, and minimal hands-on time each year.
• Early Season Activity: Mason bees emerge in early spring, just in time to pollinate fruit trees and berry bushes that bloom before honey bees and other pollinators become active.

Mason bees are a worthwhile addition to any garden, orchard, or homestead, providing effective pollination with minimal effort. By setting up a proper nesting site, ensuring access to pollen and mud, and taking the time to harvest cocoons each year, you can create a thriving Mason bee population that will benefit your crops for seasons to come.