Spring-We Welcome Your Warm Embrace

It seems like it has been forever since we have seen a warm day.  'Warm' is relative though isn't it?  I was thrilled when the thermometer hit 42 degrees this morning and threw open the windows.  With temperatures forecasted to be rising to 64 degrees by next Thursday, I am preparing to deploy my mason bee tubes.  I have been cutting and rolling tubes for weeks now. 
It's also a fun project for kids to do.  I have 40 mason bee cocoons in the refrigerator that are 2/3rd through their food supply, so I'll be monitoring the weather very closely and checking out the wild plum and cherry trees to watch for signs of blooming.
On our way to 60 degrees today, I'm headed out to prepare both the mason bee housing and my purple martin housing.  Last year, my purple martins arrived on March 10th, and with warmer days now in the forecast, it's time to pull on my mud boots, trudge through all the mud and muck left by the melting snow & ice and put up their housing. 
For now, a few quick pictures!

Materials: Ruler, regular #2 pencil, scissors, tape, parchment paper (I also have a roll of unbleached parchment paper, not shown in this picture).  The pencil is the exact diameter for the mason bee holes.

40 mason bee cocoons, waiting for the right temps and food.

My holding can.  Arranging different lengths of tubes together presents a 3D effect is supposed help the mason bee more easily find her home.

An Ozarks Mason Bee Project - Part 2

It seems not to matter how many books you read or how much research you do when it comes to nature; nature will always do what it wants to do and there's nothing you can do about it.  Earlier this year, I had launched my first Mason Bee project.  I wrote all about it here:

http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/06/an-ozarks-mason-bee-project-part-1.html

When I put that housing out on 4/28/2014, I was very worried that I had missed the window to attract mason bees to my housing.  Turns out, my instincts were right.  Again.  Not only was I right about my poor timing, I was wrong about where I placed the housing also.  I had gotten the direction right, but after discovering tent worm caterpillars in my housing, I yanked them down from their mounts and did some more reading, eventually finding some text that said, "do not hang in trees".  I found out why.
I brought in all my housing, disassembled it, cleaned it all with a 10% bleach solution and left it in the sun to dry for a week.  I was very disappointed and frustrated at myself.
One week later, while sitting on our 4-wheelers in the shop, I noticed a small, flying, wasp-like creature flying around the small holes in the handlebar ends on both our bikes.

 And she seemed to be carrying something.

Bob's handlebar grip, already stuffed and closed off with a small amount of clay.

Bob researched it that night on the internet and found out that our alien-looking insect was a Potter's wasp.  Of course, we were conflicted in our ID, because she wasn't building anything that looked like the typical Potter's wasp nests that you see on the internet, but it never seems to happen that way here anyway.  But one id factor in particular helped - she was carrying a small caterpillar into her nest.  From the ID link above:

When a cell is completed, the adult wasp typically collects beetle larvae, spiders, or caterpillars and, paralyzing them, places them in the cell to serve as food for a single wasp larva. As a normal rule, the adult wasp lays a single egg in the empty cell before provisioning it. Some species lay the egg in the opening of the cell, suspended from a thread of dried fluid. When the wasp larva hatches, it drops and starts to feed upon the supplied prey for a few weeks before pupating.

Sounds kind of brutal, but fascinating at the same time.  Realizing that I had 4 empty Mason bee homes and this poor wasp could not be allowed to continue building in our handlebars, I mounted my Mason bee homes just outside the shop and gently coaxed the wasp outside so she could find her new homes.  I figured if the Mason bees weren't going to use my homes this year, something might was well take advantage of them.
It didn't take her long to find them.  She must have attracted others because I frequently see at least 2 of them building in their nests.  They have been very tolerant of me taking pictures and so far, I have not been stung.  I have really enjoyed watching their progress, even if they're not Mason bees.  Next year, I plan on getting my housing out earlier and will work on a better location also.  For now though, I'm perfectly happy to watch these busy, busy wasps building their nests.  Things didn't work out exactly as I planned because Mother Nature decided to do something different and I'm perfectly happy to take an alternative path with Her.

Photo taken 6/21/2014 - 2 weeks after placing the housing.

7/2/2014 - can you find her? Tip: she's in the upper house.

7/4/2014 - Closeup of the top home - notice the dried clay that has fallen off the entrance holes.  While she is completely capable of finding her own clay or making the seal on her own, I do spray water on the ground to keep some clay wet for her close by.

My lovely darling - 7/17/2014

8/1/2014 - can you spot the food that is trying to escape?

Yes, the escaping food is the glow-worm at the top there.  I imagine she'll return to catch him before he gets too far.

An Ozarks Mason Bee Project - Part 1

I’ve been reading a lot about the plight of the honey bees for years now and wondering what I could do to help them.  Some people, like our local friend Andy, have setup honeybee hives on their property.  I had thought about doing that, but after listening to Andy’s experiences, now I’m glad I didn’t.  I hate getting stung by any flying or crawling insects and apparently, even with protective suits, sometimes you still get stung.  The costs of getting started with honey bees really weren’t very appealing to me either.
My desire to help the honey bees became even stronger this past year after watching several documentaries about the problems they’re encountering.  This “TED” talk by Marla Spivak was very interesting, well done and enlightening. The solutions she talks about are so obvious and simple, it makes you wonder why more people haven’t already put them into practice.

http://www.ted.com/talks/marla_spivak_why_bees_are_disappearing.html

Nevertheless, the honey bees are not the only bees that are in trouble.  My problem for the last 2 years has been dealing with the question of, “where do I start and how could I really make an impact”?  Turns out, the impact I can make starts in my own backyard.  I learned last year that there are actually more benefits and less costs involved when raising Orchard Mason Bees.  One of the benefits delighted me; Mason bees are actually more docile than honey bees and are less likely to sting!  Woohoo – I can dig that!
Orchard Mason Bees are also supposed to be better pollinators than honey bees.  They will work in cooler and damper weather as well.  Why are they better pollinators? They carry pollen on the underside of their abdomen and then scrape the pollen off within their nesting hole. Because the pollen is carried dry on their hair, it is more easily transferred, resulting in significantly more pollinated flowers than their cousin, the honey bee, who wet the pollen they carry on their legs.

http://www.crownbees.com/what-makes-mason-bees-such-good-pollinators/

http://www.citygirlfarming.com/Bees/MasonBeeInfo.html

http://www.citygirlfarming.com/Bees/BeeKeeping.html

Step 1 is to plant food to attract the bees - native wildflowers. The native wildflower project has been ongoing since 2007 and am loving the results.  But I had to smile to myself as I had uncovered yet another hobby where I would have the challenge of providing food for something I was inviting to my backyard. 
Step 2 is to provide shelter and housing. 
In researching mason bees I found that there are many simple ways to attract and provide housing for them.  If you search the internet, you will find tons of cool pictures of logs and various other natural things that can be drilled out and placed together to make visually attractive housing for them.

However attractive they are though, to my disappointment, I learned these structures are not very practical or safe for the bees as they allow various parasites to also take up residence and kill the hibernating bees.  And the housing is not very easy to clean.
I realize these natural cavities are where 99% of the mason bees lay their eggs and somehow, some percentage of them survive.  At some point, I will probably grab a bunch of hardwood, reeds and other materials and build one of these beautiful structures and just burn the materials and start over with fresh-drilled wood, reeds, etc. every year.
While I'm talking about making your own housing, here is a fun project you can do with your kids to build your own bee housing.
http://www.nwf.org/How-to-Help/Garden-for-Wildlife/Gardening-Tips/Build-a-Bee-House.aspx

But for now, I wanted to be able to see this evolution of life and I elected to try artificial housing.
I finally found a really good source for housing and ordered 4 of these blocks.
http://www.masonbeehomes.com/pro-bee-block
Mason bees usually work within a 300 foot radius of their home, so I placed these 4 blocks in strategic places around my property.

4 houses - sides & top are cut from cedar boards and the roof overhangs almost 2".

This one was hung in front of the orchard on 4/28/2014 where cherry trees, elderberries and blackberries grow.

This one is located under a tree limb, facing south as required by the instructions, overlooking a large grove of black hawthorn (viburnum).

This one was hung in front of our Viburnum forest on 4/28/2014 that blooms om early spring.

I was afraid that I had put out my Mason bee homes way too late for our region, but I was hopeful that I might pick up some stragglers.  After all, the plum trees (our first early spring bloomer in this region) and the viburnum were still blooming!  Maybe I would get lucky my first year, but I'd have to wait and see.