Pollinator Protection Project: A Home for Bees

Monday, August 19, 2013








It's been a few weeks since we last wrote about it, but that doesn't mean that we haven't been hard at work on our Pollinator Protection Project. One of the duties under the Pollinator Protection Pledge is to create and protect bee nest sites, and after noticing a few mason bees swarming around the yard at the beginning of the summer, we decided that we would build a nest for them.

Mason bees are solitary bees that make their homes in holes caused by wood-boring animals or in hollow reeds near rivers and swamps. They are important in the pollination of fruit trees (so much so that they are sometimes called "orchard bees.") Like other bees, their populations are threatened by deforestation and the use of pesticides and insecticides, so steps should be taken to protect and supplement their habitats, where possible.

Building a house for the mason bees in our yard was a quick and easy project that took only a small slice of our Saturday afternoon. There's a great tutorial here with step-by-step instructions. In a nutshell: we took about a foot long piece of 4x4 lumber and drilled small, deep holes in it using a piece of pegboard as a template for spacing. Then we angled the top to encourage water runoff and hung it on the fence near a nice wet spot where water from our gutters accumulates when it rains (mason bees love mud).



So far we're not entirely sure if any bees have moved in to the home we've made for them, but we have seen more of them buzzing around than usual so maybe? We're excited to see if any decide to become our neighbors permanently and will keep you updated if they do.

Here are some other tutorials for making nesting spots for backyard pollinators:


And for good measure, a few super-creative and fabulous designs for solitary bee houses. Some of these are really gorgeous!

Do you have bees in your backyard? What kind?


Update, 10/20/13: By mid-October, about half the nesting holes in our mason bee house were occupied. See how some of the holes are plugged with gray mud? This will hopefully mean lots of pollinators in the yard next spring/summer. Hooray!

2 comments:

  1. You may want to rethink the placement of that. It's right next to your gate and handle.

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    Replies
    1. The gate is no longer used -- it's bolted shut from the other side, we go in and out through a different entrance. But thank you for pointing this out -- I definitely should have mentioned it in my post.

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