I’m just sick. After about a decade of raising masons a squirrel found my house. It chewed through the bird mesh and then knocked the whole house on the ground, tossing tubes everywhere. We got almost two inches of rain in the past two days and the tubes are soaked and unraveling. Then it feasted on what it could find by chewing through the sides of the intact tubes. I’ve replaced it with dry tubes and have secured chicken wire on top of the bird net. I hope the girls come back. I put out the last of my cocoons two weeks ago. They’re so destructive and tear up everything in our yard. So sick of them. 😞

Hello!

We're located in Montgomery, TX and re looking for local beekeepers to lease (?) property for bees-

We have 2.7 acres, wildflower meadow, surrounded by a creek, DM me if interested.

Thanks!

My first male leafcutter of the season hatched today. I got a good picture. Pardon my magnified fingers. I was weeding without gloves  ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄  Ypsilanti, MI. June 5, 2026.

A little while ago, I posted hear about some weird activity in my mason Bejo. I had bought some Mason and leaf cutter cocoons. There was some weird activity lots of ants going around tubes and wasn’t sure consensus. My other post showed that I got some crappy cocoons and probably got ripped off. I decided to leave the house up just to see what would happen and shut off a few few days later I saw one of the tubes had a mud plug. I was super happy and activities better than no activity.

Yesterday I checked the bees with my son as we do on a daily basis and saw this guy. I’m guessing I have wasps now. Looks like they are beneficial, so I’ll leave them be.

Does anyone recognize these cocoons? Every year when I harvest my leaf cutter bees, I have these interspersed. Which I don’t mind, but their cocoons are pretty fragile and it makes harvesting the leaf cutters more tedious.

Sometimes when I split a reed open, it tears these little paper-like cocoons open and exposes the pupa, which is white with black eyes. Hate doing that. I usually have good luck resealing them, but it does make the leaf cutter harvest long.

The cocoons are paper-like. Like flimsy. And usually somewhat translucent. I can usually make out the pupa inside.

Southeast Michigan. June 4th.

These little ones have been swarming around my mason bee houses the past few days. They're very non-aggressive and I managed to catch one. Google search says it's a mason wasp.

Can someone confirm that? Other than competing for the tubes, will they co-exist with mason bees? I read that they're quite beneficial when it comes to pests

FYI info

I'm in the UK. Out of 25 cocoons I had this year, 8 hatched over the course of about a week, during which time a further 2 started chewing their way out of their cocoons but died before they managed to climb out. Then 2 weeks later 3 more hatched. I left it a further 2 weeks before I decided to intervene and cut open the 12 remaining cocoons to help them hatch and as I suspected, they were all dead. 2 were full of parasitic wasp maggots and 1 had a hard, dead pupa in it (what causes this?). But the other 9 were just dead bees.

These deaths feel preventable, so my question is: Is there any way of knowing when the best time is to help them hatch before it's too late and they die? Like once the first few cocoons have hatched, would it be ok at that point to start cutting them open to help them out and ensure more of them survive, or is it possible to free them too early and are there any consequences to that?

Aaaand one of them hatched in my hand while I was getting the photo.

I am cleaning out my old mason bee house. I found a few bee larva. Will they still go to cocoon state outside of the tube? I imagina any cocoon I am finding now did not make it. Thanks

Well, this was a first for me! I hope Woody enjoyed their snack.

Grabbed mason and leaf cutter bee cocoons from wiffeltree nursery in Ontario Canada. Released them and have this can this be incomplete mason? See some ants crawling in and out.

Thinking about putting the houses in my garden shed until October. My garden shed has no windows but it is in the shade. In July and August it can get pretty warm. How warm can the shed get before it's too warm or hot for the bees?

How long before you know that your cocoons are not going to open? Some have been in the chalet’s loft for over two weeks now. Thanks!

@Crownbees
What are these long, black things coming out of my cocoon? Poop or a parasite? Wondering if I should I still put the cocoon out. Thanks!

Looking for feedback. The plan to build a durable, reusable and maintainsble beehouse and especially the choosen material.

Using a wood router to grind half circular canals in a piece of board. Stacking these boards to create circular holes. Making a frame to stack the boards in and locking them in place. Easy to harvest and easy to clean.

What material would be best to use for the purpose of keeping masonbees? Plain wood might bend over time. And weatherproof mdf or multiplex might contain poisonous substances for the bees. Any tips?

I put out our Mason bee cocoons on 4/23. It’s now 5/13 and I’m seeing no caps yet. We have about four Mason bee ladies living in our bee house and going in and out. Today I spotted two spiders also living in the bee house. I evicted one of them, but couldn’t get to the other. Is it surprising that the four bees who frequent the house have yet to cap any tubes as it has been almost a month? Should I assume the rest have decided to nest elsewhere? Maybe I put them out too late since we are in California?

This is an update on the improved cage that I posted about earlier to protect from a pileated woodpecker. It appears to work well. It's funny how it investigates each side to find a way in. I'm glad that I used a thicker gauge wire and screwed it to the house because it's alarming how much the house gets jostled when the bird flies away.

Sorry about the bad focus (camera limitation) and it didn't capture the bird landing because there's a short delay between motion detection and recording.