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Saturday, February 16, 2002
Bee friendly Orchard mason bees aren't just for fruit trees SARAH JACKSON, THE OLYMPIAN Originally published Saturday, February 16, 2002
TUMWATER -- Bees, as many gardeners know, aren't all bad.
Proud pollinators of the plant world, bees -- especially the solitary, friendly kind -- can be a gardener's best friend.
Just ask Chris Eberle -- a bee buff.
Orchard mason bees helped Eberle's meager-yielding peach tree at his Tumwater home turn into a 500-fruit producer (with one extremely overloaded limb) -- after one year.
But mostly, Eberle just likes the fun -- yes, fun -- of bees.
"They're cute and they're fuzzy and they don't sting," Eberle said, standing in the garage of his Olympia home where he fashions his own mason bee boxes. "I've made a whole bunch of new ones for spring. I actually put up four today."
Now -- the very verge of spring -- is the time to think about orchard mason bees.
Mason bees, Eberle's specialty, thrive from March to June, visiting and pollinating nearly every early flower, especially those blooms on fruit trees.
"They go through their metamorphosis," Eberle said. "They're the earliest bees out -- once the temperature hits 50 degrees for three or four days."
More important, perhaps, mason bees can add to wildlife habitat, attracting a whole variety of bees, other insects and birds to last throughout the prime pollinating summertime and vegetable gardening season.
'Gregarious' bees
Lisa Novich, co-owner of the Knox Cellars Native Bees based in Bellingham, said gardeners don't need fruit trees to benefit from mason bees.
Mason bees, Novich said, can be quite social, even "gregarious."
"If you have mason bees in your yard, other bees will be attracted," Novich said. "They're a ton of fun. Your flowers perform better. Everything looks better pollinated."
Holly plants and early strawberries can benefit from mason bee pollination, too. Plus, mason bees don't need fruit trees to survive.
"You need lots of fun things that bloom," Novich said. "Blueberries are really good with mason bees. I sell a ton of mason bees to blueberry farmers."
Knox Cellars Native Bees -- which, incidentally, doesn't sell wine -- leads the way in the mason bee propagation world.
"We're the big dog, nationally," Novich said. "It's steadily grown over the last eight or nine years. The Northwest really leads the country."
Novich, speaking on beneficial bees today at Gordon's Garden Center in Yelm, runs the business with her father, Brian Griffin, author of what some consider the Bee Bible -- "The Orchard Mason Bee."
Novich said it used to be that even farmers didn't purposely utilize North America's native bee, osmia lignaria, which is slightly smaller than a honey bee with shiny, dark blue color.
"It had never gotten out of scientific circles," Novich said, adding that for her father: "It was a hobby out of control."
Products
Now Knox Cellars sells everything from the Humble Bumble Home for bumble bees to nesting blocks engineered to invite aphid-hunting, solitary wasps.
Many species are overlooked by gardeners, including osmia californica, a western bee and mason bee cousin that emerges just as mason bees die.
"There's still a lot of confusion between pollinating bees and honey bees," Novich said. "Everybody was taught in school that all bees make honey, that all bees serve a queen."
Eberle -- who will be speaking on beneficial bees Tuesday and Friday in Lacey on behalf of the Master Gardeners -- started his bee hobby about eight years ago.
Using the most common method at the time, Eberle drilled a bunch of one-fourth-inch holes in a 4-by-4 wood block, which eventually attracted mason bees.
Eventually, however, better bee technology hit the scene.
Now Eberle uses reusable cardboard nesting tubes, white paper nest liners and little black, plastic plugs -- all from Knox Cellars, all contained in homemade wooden boxes.
Placed outdoors in early spring, the "System Nester Tubes" provide welcome deep holes for bees for eggs.
Backyard bee
Eberle feels so safe with the buzzing wonders, he's put his bee boxes on the support beams on his back porch.
"This is a backyard, anybody-can-do-it type bee," Eberle said. "It's really simple. It's like bird house. You put up a bird house. Birds come."
If you're looking for instant bees, Knox and other companies can ship different bee varieties in their dormant state for the next month or so for spring hatching.
Mason bees and many other beneficial bees won't sting unless they are trapped under clothing or tormented.
That's because mason bees -- unlike honey bees or wasps -- are solitary, which means they don't colonize in a hive and don't serve a queen bee.
They're less aggressive because they aren't fervently defending a nest.
Instead, mason bees nest in pencil-size holes -- including wooden holes found in nature, holes drilled into wood or specialty bee home systems.
"They're solitary, but they do like company," Eberle said. "They'll build right next to each other."
Females work feverishly throughout the early spring, laying eggs and collecting pollen and putting mud plugs between each bee baby -- hence the name, mason bee.
Then -- over the course of the year -- their offspring mature, survive on the pollen, hibernate and emerge in early spring for their own pollination and mating extravaganza.
"There's no worker bees," Eberle said. "She does all the work. Sound familiar?"
So while the female is making 15 to 20 trips to pollen plants per egg she lays, the boys -- smaller in size -- are bumming around.
"The males just have to live long enough to mate," Eberle said. "They don't live nearly as long."
Native pollinator
Eberle also keeps bees at his property in Cle Elum, where he expects 10,000 bees to emerge from their silent cocoons.
Each nesting tube in Eberle's back yard in Tumwater holds about eight bees, so he's expecting more than 300 mason bees to emerge this spring, ready to pollinate and proliferate.
"We've got apples and pears and some cherries, and hopefully they'll all do really well," Eberle said. "We have pretty good luck."
Orchard mason bees are most commonly found native throughout most of North America, particularly in wooded areas but often around homes in towns and cities.
Their "fuzzy" look comes from tufts of light-colored hairs on the face on the male, which also has longer antenna. Females have hairs on the underside of the abdomen adapted for carrying pollen.
Irresistible
Mason bees will nest anywhere with the right size hole -- even in the round holes in outdoor light sockets if left uncovered -- so they're easy to attract, and the disposable tubes offer easier cleanup.
Homeowners sometimes become concerned when they see mason bees entering cavities under shake siding or nail holes.
But, according to the Washington State University Cooperative Extension, mason bees are not destructive because they don't excavate holes in the wood.
Therefore, no controls are recommended, although holes may be filled with caulking to prevent the bee from nesting.
Lisa Lindholm, a sales associate at Boulevard Nursery in Olympia, said gardeners have shown increased interest in mason bees.
"It's actually growing in popularity with many nurseries around here," Lindholm said. "I think people are getting more interested in sustainable agriculture like fruit trees, fruit population."
However, Lindholm adds that, even with mason bees, fruit trees still need pruning, fertilization and, possibly, spray.
"They (mason bees) don't actually improve the quality of the fruit," Lindholm said. "You still have to care for a fruit tree."
Eberle recommends putting bee homes in a sheltered, warm place.
"They like a hot, sunny place -- but out of the rain -- under the eaves of the house, where the sun hits it, is great," Eberle said.
Eberle, a Master Gardener himself, believes the only disadvantage to mason bees is getting hooked.
"It's like plants," Eberle said. "Once you start, you've got to have more -- they're irresistible.
"It's really neat. They're fun to watch."
Sarah Jackson writes for The Olympian and can be reached at 360-704-6871 or sajackso@olympia.gannett.com.
- Knox Cellars Native Bees of Bellingham: www.knoxcellars.com.
- "Pollination Facts" from Home and Garden Television: www.hgtv.com/HGTV/project/0,1158,GALA_project_4402,FF.html.
- Washington State University article on "Orchard Mason Bees": gardening.wsu.edu/library/ inse006/inse006.htm.
- Visit the Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory at Utah State University for "Bee Sources" information: www.loganbeelab.usu.edu.
- Pollinator Paradise: www.pollinatorparadise.com.
- "The Orchard Mason Bee" by Brian Griffin of Knox Cellars.
- "Humblebee Bumblebee" by Brian Griffin of Knox Cellars.
- What: Lisa Novich, co-owner of Knox Cellars Native Bees in Bellingham, will talk about mason bees, osmia lugnaria, as well as osmia californica, a western bee that emerges after the mason bee.
- When: 10 a.m. today.
- Where: Gordon's Garden Center, Yelm.
- Information: 360-458-2481.
- Online: See Novich's full schedule at www.knoxcellars.com.
Next week: 'Bee Friendly'
- What: The Thurston County Master Gardeners with Washington State University's Cooperative Extension present Master Gardener Chris Eberle, who will talk about orchard mason bees and how to raise them.
- When: 10 a.m.-noon Tuesday and 1-3 p.m. Friday.
- Where: WSU Cooperative Extension office at 720 Sleater-Kinney Road behind Fred Meyer in Lacey.
- Information: 360-786-5445.
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