Environment & Energy

But are you able to buy mason bees?

I'm in Southern BC, and this will be the third year I've bought them. I have six fruit trees, and ten mason bees pollinate all of them, along with any local bees that fly in.

You can keep them refrigerated until the trees are in bloom. I release five at a time, first for the cherry trees, and then for the apple and plum trees.

You place the cocoons in a bee house, and supposedly, they return to that bee house to lay their eggs which hatch the following year, although there's no guarantee of that. A friend of mine has a mason bee house packed with cocoons laid the previous year. Another, like myself, has had no luck with the bee housing.

This year, I'm trying something that did work for her. She picked up a log, into which she drilled quarter inch holes, and then stood the log upright, facing south. Her mason bees have used the log for their cocoons.